GMERS Gujarat: 600 Applications for 350 Medical Vacancies, But 88 Appointment Letters

As the letters have been furnished too late since the interviews were conducted 7 months ago; refusals are expected and considering the same, another round of the recruitment process may take place again.

Gujarat: First the recruitment process, now the hiring results have drawn a lot of offputting attention from the media as even after receiving applications from over 600 doctors for 350 vacant positions at eight hospitals run by the society, the Gujarat Medical Education and Research Society (GMERS) has issued only 88 appointment letters.

The interviews for the vacant positions were carried at the beginning of the year but the appointment letters are issued in October, much later than anticipated. Seeing that refusals are expected and considering the same, another round of the recruitment process may take place again.

According to a recent media account, seven months after interviews for recruitment of doctors were carried by GMERS in February for eight hospitals under the society— Sola, Gandhinagar, Gotri, Valsad, Patan, Himmatnagar, Vadnagar and Junagadh; the concerned officials issued appointment letters only in the second week of October to fill just 25% of these vacancies.

Confirming the same, Dr Bipin Nayak, Deputy CEO of GMERS told Mirror, "We have issued 88 appointment letters till date. Of these, two doctors have refused to join GMERS and so we will issue letters from the waiting list." These letters have been issued primarily for positions in Medicine, Paediatrics, Anaesthesia, Radiology and Orthopaedic departments.

Earlier, Medical Dialogues had reported that due to faculty shortage, around 252 faculty members including professors, assistant professors and associate professors and tutors, were recently transferred across government and GMERS medical colleges in Vadnagar, Himmatnagar and Junagadh that are due for a surprise inspection from the Medical Council of India.

The state government had taken various initiatives in order to fill up the vacancies but to no avail, the recruitment process drew a lot of controversies, leaving the state medical colleges high and dry.

Read Also: Gujarat: 72 Professors, Lecturers to be transferred to Medical Colleges for MCI inspection

On being asked as to why only 88 of vacant positions were filled out of 350. To this question, Dr Raghvendra Dixit, the CEO of GMERS replied to the daily, "About 10 branches of medicine did not get any applications and so those files have been closed. We also did not find eligible candidates in some other departments. We will be looking to recruit more people soon as no candidates applied for positions in 10 departments, leaving those positions empty as of now."

According to certain society officials, two doctors have already rejected the given jobs, and more refusals are expected as the letters have been furnished too late since the interviews were conducted 7 months ago. The appointment letters were given in the first and second week of October and the selected doctors are expected to join by mid-November.

Considering the refusal issue, another round of the recruitment process may take place again.

Informing about the scenario that many doctors will not join since the appointments have come so late, Dr Dixit stated to Mirror, "If doctors don't join by November, we will advertise again after two months, in December or January." Asked why doctors were not keen to join GMERS, Dr Nayak said, "It's not that doctors don't want to join here. It means there is a lack of doctors in the industry."

The doctors have been given a stipulated time period of one month for joining their positions at GMERS.

Read Also: Medical Education suffered due to Shortage, en-masse transfer of teachers for MCI inspection: CAG on Gujarat