Faculty Shortage before MCI Inspection: GMERS moves to shuffle doctors once again

Ahmedabad: Amidst recruitment issues relating medical faculty for its medical colleges; the Gujarat Medical Education and Research Society (GMERS) has transferred doctors including tutors, associate professors and even professors who are HoDs at medical colleges to fill up the vacancies during MCI inspections at certain institutes.

According to a recent report by the Mirror, 37 doctors from six medical colleges were transferred on October 17th to Vadnagar medical college, the newest of the state's eight GMERS institutes. The institute is in its third year of operation since its inauguration in 2017.

This is not the first time that the authorities have resorted to short cuts in their hiring. Medical dialogues had last year also reported about the authorities conducting en-masse transfer of medical faculty ahead of the inspections. In September 2018, Around 252 faculty members including Professors, Assistant Professors and Associate Professors and Tutors, were transferred across government and GMERS medical colleges in Vadnagar, Himmatnagar and Junagadh that were due for a surprise inspection from the Medical Council of India.

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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.

The said was apparent by the earlier hiring process which drew a lot of off-putting attention since despite receiving applications from over 600 doctors for 350 vacant positions at eight hospitals run by the society, the GMERS issued only 88 appointment letters.

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

This time, according to Mirror, out of the 37 doctors, 12 doctors, including a professor and six assistant professors were transferred to Vadnagar during inspection time. The transfer was done from GMERS Gotri in Vadodara, 11 doctors from Gandhinagar, including 2 professors and 3 assistant professors were transferred; 5 from GMERS Sola in Ahmedabad, 4 from Valsad, 3 from Dharpur in Patan and 2 from Himmatnagar.

As per the officials, GMERS Vadnagar Medical College and Hospital is facing the shortfall of about over 50 doctors-cum-medical teachers.

Commenting on the transfer, the GMERS CEO Dr Raghavendra Dixit informed that even as the GMERS itself is in its second round of recruitment in as many years due to inordinate delays and lack of doctors willing to take up postings in peripheral areas, only about 15 positions have been filled up at Vadnagar in the latest recruitment process.

Dr Dixit further pointed to the vacancy problem being faced by the institute and the resolution opted for the same. He told Mirror, "Even as recruitment was delayed last year, this year we issued appointment orders within a month of taking the interviews. Now, we have even opened up the waiting list so that other doctors get a chance to take up these positions which selected candidates have rejected. Hopefully, we should have better results this year."

MCI does not permit a vacancy of more than 5 per cent in a medical college during the inspection.