Covid warriors are feeling let down; PSMDTA demanded immediate redressal of genuine demands
Kanwar Inder Singh / royalpatiala.in/ Patiala
Covid warriors who have been on duties round the clock for more than eight months now treating Covid patients coming from more than ten districts of the state to Rajindra Hospital in Patiala, are feeling let down and cheated for failure of the Department of Medical Education & Research Punjab to fulfil some of the long pending genuine demands of medical and dental teachers in spite of repeated assurances from the departmental higher ups.
A protest meeting of the executive body of the Patiala unit of Punjab State Medical & Dental Teachers Association was held under the leadership of its president Dr. D.S. Bhullar in the medical college last week.
Major demands of the faculty include time bound re-designation, enhancement in age of retirement to 65 years, notification for compensatory earned leave for cancelled summer vacation this year, powers to college principals to sanction ex-India leave and rectification in computed leave for medical and dental teachers.
Recently notification for time bound designations has been issued by the Chandigarh administration for the faculty of Government Medical College Chandigarh and subsequently implemented with clearance of the cases of all eligible faculty for time bound re-designations but in Punjab the directorate of medical education and research is sleeping on the files and has totally ignored the demand under the garb of Covid pandemic as alleged in the meeting.
The second major long pending demand is parity in the retirement age of medical and dental teachers working under Government of Punjab with other states which is now 65 years as allowed by Medical Council of India (now National Medical Commission) but the age of retirement for Punjab Government medical and dental teachers is still 62 years and failure of the medical education department to enhance the age from 62 to 65 years has led to a strong resentment.
According to General Secretary of the PSMDTA Patiala unit, Dr. Darshanjit Singh Walia, the department has also failed to issue notification for compensatory earned leave to the medical and dental teachers in lieu of the cancellation of the summer vacation of the faculty due to Covid pandemic this year which may force the faculty to adopt the legal recourse in case the department fails to act in time.
The association has also demanded from the medical education department and Baba Farid University of Health Sciences Faridkot to issue the circular of coming winter vacation in medical dental colleges by end of this month.
The medical education department has also failed to issue the circular for sanction of the Ex-India leave authorizing the principals of medical dental colleges to sanction the leave up to one month especially during vacation months as assured by the Secretary Medical Education & Research six months back during his visit to Patiala and also rectification in the computed leave as in other departments.
The association in the meeting has also urged the Chief Minister Capt. Amrinder Singh to appoint next Vice Chancellor of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences Faridkot from Patiala city instead of any outsider as wished of the people of Patiala and doctors community from the region. There is no dearth of eligible and experienced faculty in Patiala for this post and after Dr Ravinder Singh, no doctor has ever been given the chance to serve on this post, said Dr DS Bhullar who has already sent such proposal to Member Parliament Maharani Preneet Kaur.
November 20,2020
