The State Government on Monday allowed more than two dozen doctors, who had remained unauthorisedly absent, to rejoin their duty in different health institutes across J&K.
An official in Health and Medical Education Department(H&ME) said after “partial success” of the recently held recruitment drivefor filling 1,000 vacant posts of Medical Officers in rural areas of J&K,the Government has been cautious about losing more human resource allocated forrural health institutes.
He said that the order issued today (July 8), allowing 26Medical Officers to rejoin after completion of their post-graduation, was astep in this direction.
“These Medical Officers were pursuing higher education, withor without permission of the authorities. But they have are not treated on samelines to those doctors who flee their postings for ‘greener pastures’,” theofficial said.
The order issued by the Department states that five of the26 doctors had already started working with Directorate of Health Services”pending confirmation from administrative department” while remaining medicoswere awaiting instructions from the Department regarding settlement of theirabsence for grant of permission to join their duty.
The order states that the Health Department took a “lenientview” and allowed 21 doctors to rejoin, according confirmation to the actiontaken by Director Health Services Kashmir while accepting rejoining of the fiveremaining doctors who have been already allowed to work.
All the doctors have however been “warned not to leave theirplaces of posting unauthorisedly for any occasion in future”.
Recently, of the 1,000 newly appointed Medical Officers thegovernment had terminated appointment of around 500 of these doctors who wereeither pursuing higher education or had remained unauthorisedly absent.
“These 26 doctors however don’t belong to the category ofthe medicos whose services were terminated recently,” said the official.
The State’s healthcare institutes located in far-flung anddifficult areas have been reeling under gross shortage of human resource,especially doctors.
As per the fresh instructions issued by the government nodoctor is allowed to pursue any educational or training course during theperiod of probation. “It is for the first time that Government has selecteddoctors with the clause that they will have no claim on any concession for theprobation period, either on higher education, or transfer,” the official said.
However, he said, the same clause doesn’t hold for otherappointments, made earlier.