Srinagar, July 10: Taking strong exception to the unabated private practice by some of the senior faculty members of premier tertiary care Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Soura the Chief Minister’s office has constituted a special squad to raid and subsequently arrest the medicos indulging in the prohibitory act.
Sources told Greater Kashmir that the squad was formed after Chief Minister’s office received repeated complaints from the conscious senior citizens and different stakeholders of the society, accusing these doctors of indulging in private practice, despite receiving huge sum as Non-Practicing Allowance (NPA) from the hospital every month.
“The Chief Minister’s office has even learnt that these senior doctors operate their private clinics from the houses of relatives, close acquaintances, friends and even neighbours in order to escape and evade the dragnet of State Vigilance Organization and other government law enforcement agencies,” sources said adding that the squad members would visit these “private clinics” in the disguise of a patient and would arrest the medicos indulging in the prohibitory act.
They said that these medicos had hired people who, wearing civvies, remain posted outside their clinics to check the potential raid threat from the Vigilance and other agencies.
Sources in the CM’s office further revealed that despite repeated warnings from the hospital administration and senior functionaries of the government, these doctors were flouting the guidelines with impunity. “The hospital administration has been frequently issuing orders and diktats, even through newspapers, asking the medicos to desist from the act, but these doctors haven’t honoured it,” sources said, adding that these medicos would be now taken to task as they were playing with the lives of people by doing private practice during the hours, they should have been attending the hospital.
These doctors have even dared the Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, who during an annual day celebration of the Institute few years back, had warned them of dire consequences if they persisted with the private practice,” sources said adding the Chief Minister had even threatened to expose such elements.
They said that these medicos haven’t even fallen in line after the authorities raided some of their private clinics in February last year. “The authorities led by Additional Commissioner Kashmir, caught these doctors red handed while indulging in private practice, even during the duty hours,” sources said, adding that these doctors had to face the worst humiliation as the video footage of these raids were leaked and posted on the social networking sites of Facebook and Youtube.

Lastupdate on : Tue, 10 Jul 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Tue, 10 Jul 2012 18:30:00 GMT
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