Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Feb 8: To avoid inconvenience to ailing community and compensate doctors in wake of recent ban on private practice of Head of Departments (HoDs) in Government Medical Colleges and Associate Hospitals, the State Government is mulling to start evening clinics in both the capital cities.
These evening clinics will be operated from Chopra Nursing Home in Jammu and Kashmir Nursing Home in Srinagar where services of senior Government doctors will be hired, authoritative sources informed the Excelsior.
A formal proposal in this regard has almost been prepared by the Medical Education Department and the same is being taken up before the State Cabinet for its final approval, sources added.
In these evening clinics, sources further informed, Head of Departments, Unit Heads and other faculty members of Government Medical Colleges will be allowed private practice as per the roaster and against a ‘genuine’ fee to be fixed by the Government.
When contacted, Minister for Medical Education Taj Mohi-ud-Din confirmed that his department has prepared a proposal for the evening clinics at Chopra Nursing Home in GMC Jammu and Kashmir Nursing Home in Srinagar.
“We have taken this decision to compensate the doctors whose private practice has recently been banned and also avoid inconvenience to the people, who want to pay for medical services,” he elaborated adding that the Government infrastructure, which was lying idle in both the Nursing Homes will also be get utilized this way.
It may be mentioned here that Chopra Nursing Home at GMC Hospital premises in Jammu and Kashmir Nursing Home in Valley are lying virtually closed resulting into depletion of infrastructure worth crores.
The Government had banned private practice of Head of Departments in Government Medical Colleges and Associated Hospitals, last month.
According to the sources, the ban on private practice of HoDs had triggered a stir among the senior doctors and some of them even started exploring other options, such as quitting the Government job and joining private institutions.
The Government can’t afford to allow the senior faculty members to quit the job or avoid Headship as their number is already less than the required strength, sources said reminding that non-availability of faculty would automatically invite de-recognition of courses in Government Medical Colleges here.
Besides compensating these faculty members, the evening clinics will also encourage the affluent people to avail private medical services within Jammu Kashmir instead of going to other States for the same, sources explained.
However, the fee of doctors in these clinics will be ‘nominal and genuine’, which will be decided by the Government, maintained Taj Mohi-ud-Din.
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