Doctors, medical students protest against non transparent service recruitment

Chennai: 700 service doctors, postgraduate students and non-service postgraduate doctors from all over the state staged a protest outside the Directorate of Medical Education in Kilpauk on Tuesday. The demand being raised by them was of recruitment through regular counselling.

They alleged non-transparency in the counselling of the doctors done for recent recruitments owing to the emergency that arose for service doctors due to the recent dengue cases rising in the state.

The protest was against the recruitment of doctors for 465 vacancies being allotted to private college students through the emergency counselling , despite a large number of a number of government postgraduate students and non-service postgraduate doctors being available.

"Walk-in interview for recruitment is only on a temporary basis, in case of emergency. The Medical Recruitment Board takes the ranking and merit into consideration, but it was ignored in the recent counselling. Authorities had conducted recruitment violating the GO number 131 that lays down the regulations for emergency counselling and have allotted seats in Chennai, Madurai and other areas," a Government Medical College's, service doctor, Dr D. Silambarasan told Deccan Chronicle.

The protest took on serious overtones when doctors stuck work, wanting to discuss the issue with the health secretary.

The protesting doctors are seeking reconsideration of recruitments done on the basis of walk-in interviews by the recruitment board. They said recruitments of this kind were meant for emergencies and not for regular appointments. "The allotment made for a group of private doctors leaving behind the righteous group of assistant professors, non-service doctors with two years of service bond to the government has affected the doctors who have already served the service. We expect the health secretary to look into the issue and resolve it as soon as possible," said Dr G.R. Rabindranath, Doctors' Association for Social Equality.

Senior officials of state health department, however, deny having violated norms, saying a notification regarding the recruitment was already issued to the doctors and there was no violation of regulations reports Deccan Chronicle.

The officials plan to carry on with the discussion and clarifications at the meeting to be held on Thursday with the Director, Medical Education and Health Secretary.