Govt transfer policy torn to shreds at District Hospital Pulwama

PULWAMA — The transfer policy of the Jammu and Kashmir government seems not to be applicable to the influential and well-connected doctors and para-medics at District Hospital Pulwama.

Scores of doctors and para-medics posted in the hospital have not been transferred from the healthcare facility for last 10 years.

According to hospital sources, these doctors, including surgeons, physicians, ENT specialists, are running private clinics in the area and have managed to retain themselves in the hospital for over a decade or more.

As per the norms, a government employee cannot stay at a certain place of posting for more than two or three years. However, out of 50 to 60 doctors working at DH Pulwama, the most overcrowded hospital of the district, scores of well-connected doctors are overstaying.

“Most of these doctors don’t want their private practice to be affected and that is why they refuse to leave their choicest posting,” a source in the hospital told news agency CNS.

“To legalize their long stay in the hospital what these doctors do is that they get themselves transferred to another place for a few months and then get either an attachment or a transfer order back to the district hospital,” a source said. “They do it in connivance of some higher-ups in the department,” another source said.

Some of these doctors have even set up private hospitals. “By staying at an overcrowded hospital, these doctors manage to lure a good chunk of patients to their private hospitals for surgeries,” an insider said.

Locals have appealed the Lieutenant Governor administration to shift the overstaying doctors from the hospital, so that the healthcare in the facility does not become a casualty.