Govind Sharma
JAMMU, Feb 5: The Government of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has sought views of heads of all Government Medical Colleges on imposition of ban on private practice of doctors in the UT.
According to the sources, Lieutenant Governor’s Secretariat, J&K has asked the Principals of GMCs Jammu, Srinagar, Kathua, Doda, Rajouri, Anantnag and Baramulla to furnish their comments/views regarding ban on private practice of doctors.
Sources said the LG office has been receiving numerous complaints from public regarding absence of doctors from their duties during office hours and giving more importance to private practice after which such comments have been sought from the Principals of the GMCs, which is a clear sign that J&K administration might contemplate imposition of ban on private practice of the doctors.
While some principals expressed ignorance about such a circular issued by LG’s Secretariat, others said the circular has created confusion as to what kind of comments are being sought from them.
Talking to Excelsior on the condition of anonymity, head of one of the Government Medical Colleges in Jammu province said, “This circular has created confusion and we don’t know whether Government is seeking our views on infrastructure or manpower available with us to deal extra rush of patients in case of private practice of doctors or they have sought our opinion whether the private practice should be banned or not”.
Similar views were shared by Principal of one of the GMCs of Kashmir province. He said first it is not clear what type of comments Government wants from us as banning of private practice of doctors is an administrative issue and it should be dealt on administration level. “How as an individual we can comment on this important matter?” he asked.
Meanwhile, sources said such a ban if imposed is not possible to be implemented in letter and spirit as earlier when HoDs of GMCs were barred from private practice in the erstwhile State of J&K, the authorities completely failed to implement the same and several HoDs openly used to practice in their private clinics and nobody dared to take action against them.
“Majority of the senior doctors are doing private practice in the UT. These doctors are more interested to see patients in their clinics rather than to attend patients at their place of postings,” they alleged and added that besides poor patients, study of under graduate and post graduate students also suffered as these doctors are least bothered about new inventions.
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