Doctors teaching at medical colleges come under promotion plan

THERE ARE TWO CADRES IN THE STATE HEALTH DEPARTMENT: GENERAL HEALTH CADRE AND THE MEDICAL EDUCATION CADRE.

DHANBAD: The state government will give Dynamic Assured Career Progression (DACP) benefits to over 250 senior doctors of Patliputra Medical College Hospital (PMCH), Dhanbad, Rajendra Institute of Medical Science (RIMS), Ranchi and Mahatma Gandhi Medical College Hospital (MGMCH), Jamshedpur on a par with general health cadre doctors.

There are two cadres in the state health department. Those doctors who work in government hospitals belong to general health cadre while those doctors who only teach students in medical colleges belong to medical education cadre.

Health minister Ramchandra Chandravanshi assured a delegation of Medical College Teachers Association (MCTA) of providing DACP to all eligible doctors of medical education cadre when they met him on Sunday evening. The minister expressed surprise when he was told that the state government had provided DACP to doctors of general health cadre and overlooked the claim of medical education doctors.

The state government awarded DACP to 536 doctors of general health care in February 2014, but overlooked senior teachers and doctors of these medical colleges. According to a senior doctor of the PMCH, till the bifurcation of Bihar in 2000, doctors of both the cadres were given DACP, but the Jharkhand government decided to adopt a selective policy.

The state chapter of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) had protested against the government move. A delegation of IMA met the then health secretary and demanded DACP for doctors of medical education.

“It is injustice with doctors involved in medical education. I will not show my face to you again if I fail to give you DACP,” the minister assured the delegation of MCTA led by Dr DP Bhadani, head of the surgery department of PMCH. The minister also assured junior doctors of enhancing their stipend on a par with junior doctors of RIMS.

Junior doctors of PMCH and MGMCH have been demanding stipend at par with their counterparts of RIMS. Junior doctors of RIMS draw ` 54,000 while those at PMCH and MGMCH get only ` 32, 000. In October, the then health minister Rajendra Singh had assured junior doctors of PMCH of revising their stipend..