PMSA docs object to ‘MBAs in health dept’ plan

The government doctors in Uttar Pradesh are skeptical about the recently announced plan to deploy management graduates in the health department for administrative roles.

The Provincial Medical Service Association (PMSA), body of government doctors in Uttar Pradesh, has asked chief minister Yogi Adityanath to reconsider the decision.

“The PMSA association has written a letter regarding posting of management professionals,” confirmed Dr DS Negi, director general, medical health department.

“Doctors in the state have proved they can fight in any circumstance to weed out polio, Japanese Encephalitis and even in Covid management there have been tremendous effort and many doctors died. We are committed towards dedicated work. In such a situation, asking inexperienced management graduates to manage medical facilities will actually make doctors feel depressed,” said Dr Amit Singh, general secretary PMSA and Dr Sachin Vaish, president, PMSA, in the letter to the CM.

It has been seen that despite doctors doing their best, in many cases the administrative officials in the district had been exploiting and humiliating doctors and even taking credit for what work doctors are doing, said Dr Vaish.

In Covid pandemic, the kind of data management done by doctors has made it easy to get any assessment, said Dr Vaish.

“There are already management consultants deployed under the national health mission at chief medical officer’s office in districts. But deploying them in technical posts will disturb the entire healthcare system,” said Dr Singh.

He added that the key issue is that all efforts to bring in new doctors in the state have failed whether it is through walk-ininterviews or reappointments. In such a situation appointing non-medical person will further disturb the system, said Dr Singh.

“Work done by every department is technical. Only MBBS graduates can be posted in all departments. Doctors’ worth can be understood by the fact that their retirement age was increased from 58 years to 60 years and then 62 and the VRS has also been stopped for doctors despite being available in all other departments,” said doctors. They said, “About 5,000 posts of doctors in vacant. First these posts should be filled to improve situation.”