Doon hospital requests govt to put transfer of 5 doctors on hold

Days after the Uttarakhand government ordered transfer of five doctors from the Government Doon Medical College Hospital (GDMCH), during a mass transfer of over 240 doctors in various districts of the state, medical superintendent Dr K K Tamta, on Monday, cited severe staff crisis and requested authorities to put on hold these transfers until relievers are deployed.

These five doctors, against whom transfer orders were given, are Dr Narendra Singh Tomar, Dr Pankaj Sharma, Dr Abhilasha Kohli (all anesthetists), Dr Yatindra Singh (radiologist) and Dr Deepika Jain (pathologist). According to the hospital administration, their retention is important to continue medical services at the facility.

The state government, on Friday, had ordered transfer of more than 240 doctors, of which 170 were given postings in the hills. The move was aimed at maintaining a fine balance among physicians deployed in various districts of the state. This also led to protests by many government doctors who threatened to resign or go on strike alleging ‘favouritism’ in preparing the transfers list.
In GDMCH, patients were left in a lurch after the transfer order led to an acute crisis of doctors. According to sources, the situation was so acute that some of the earlier scheduled operations could only be conducted on Monday after transferred anesthetists Dr Pankaj Sharma and Dr Narendra Singh Tomar offered their services to the facility.

“It is essential to retain these doctors until new physicians are engaged in the GDMCH. We receive the highest number of patients in the state. As such, we have requested the health department to retain these five transferred doctors,” said Dr Tamta.
Moreover, senior resident doctor Vichi Khanna resigned from his services on Monday, leaving only one other radiologist, Dr G S Joshi, in the radiology department of GDMCH. Senior radiologist and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) specialist, Dr Yatindra Singh, was also transferred to Boradi Hospital in Tehri on Friday. With only a few radiologists in the department now, services such as MRI, CT scan, Mamography, X- ray, digital X-ray, ultrasound and bone densitometer are likely to be hit, said hospital sources.

Meanwhile, doctors of the state Provincial Medical Health Services (PMHS) had already raised concerns over the government’s decision to conduct transfers which they said were “visibly biased”.