VIVEK SHARMA
JAMMU: Notorious for all the wrong doings besides omissions and commissions, Government Medical College, Jammu got again mired in controversy-this time over distribution of patients in Cardiology Department of Super Specialty Hospital, ostensibly to further the career advancement of two doctors.
In an unheard office order, Principal GMC Dr Zahid H Geelani ordered, “It is hereby ordered that Dr Dharminder Kumar, Assistant Professor, Cardiology (OPG) and Dr Sanjeev Bhat, Lecturer Medicine, working in Cardiology Department shall admit their patients on their OPD/Emergency day in 50% of the area of the common ICU located at 3rd floor of the Super Specialty Hospital, Jammu in first phase” This order has been issued in continuation to earlier Order No GMC/PS/16/Order/309 Dated 08-01-2015.
Ironically, the order makes mention of “their patients” (an admission that the patients are already in the contact of the doctors concerned) instead of patients visiting OPD for check up or the follow up.
The copies of the Order No GMC/PS/16/Order/1302 Dated 07-05-2016 have been endorsed, inter allia by Officer on Special Duty to Minister for Health and Medical Education Bali Bhagat for his information. An inference can be drawn that the arrangement between Dr Dharminder Kumar and Dr Sanjeev Bhat has been worked out as per the instructions of the minister. This assumes credibility as no cognizance has either be taken by the minister or the Secretary Health and Medical Education Department.
By making distribution of beds and ICUs among two doctors, it becomes clear that the SSH does not treat patients as humans but as commodities which can be shared. “Does this mean that if any patient needs immediate hospitalisation in the ICU, he or she can be denied the same if the particular doctor on that day has exhausted his 50 per cent quota”, Avinash Sharma, an attendant to a patient, told STATE TIMES adding that this arrangement has never and nowhere been heard of.
The GMC is used to serving the whims and fancies of ministers and top bureaucrats. In the previous dispensation, or first spell of the PDP-BJP Government, the duty roasters of the doctors used to be issued from the Administrative Department in the Civil Secretariat. Despite change of guard, nothing has changed on ground-zero in the so-called premier hospital of the Jammu region. Insiders say that the arrangement between two doctors of the Cardiology Department has been made with the intention of ensuring equal number of slots to them in the ICU, which generally the doctors keep earmarked for their patients examined in their private clinics.
“The deep rooted nexus has now got sanction of the minister and the higher ups of the Medical Education Department and the GMC”, said an insider on the condition of anonymity, adding that the management had become so brazen that no care is being taken of the public sentiment.
