GUWAHATI, Jan 21 - Grappling with shortage of specialist doctors, the State government is weighing legal options, including filing of FIRs, against those PG doctors who have passed out of State medical colleges and haven�t served here in compliance with the conditions in the bonds they signed.
The Director of Medical Education has served notices to 13 PG doctors who skipped the counselling process for contractual engagement and 63 others who have not reported to their allotted place of assignment.
�If they do not report within fifteen days, we are going to take strict action this time. The government may have to lodge police cases against the doctors for breaching the PG Bond conditions and file money suits to recover the stipends the government paid to them while undergoing the PG courses,� a senior health department official told The Assam Tribune.
The current shortage of �entry-level� specialist doctors in the medical colleges is around 200, while in the periphery hospitals it is over 1,000. Some districts do not have a single MD in the government sector.
There are currently 494 PG seats in the four medical colleges of the State. The seats are filled through the all-India National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for Post Graduate conducted by the National Board of Examinations, and half of the seats are reserved for State students.
�Those students who opt to sign the PG Bond and take the monthly stipend offered by the State government during their course of study have to compulsorily serve in the State for a certain period after completion of the course,� the official said.
Struggling to retain the services of the PG doctors who pass out from the State colleges, the health department had last year decided to withhold the university certificates for a year. But the move was challenged by 23 students in the high court which stayed the decision.
�The requirement of specialists in clinical subjects is increasing in the State. More and more hospitals are coming up. The Diphu Medical College will start in about a year, and then the three colleges at Nagaon, Dhubri and Lakhimpur will be launched. One college needs a minimum faculty of some 200 doctors, and half of them are entry-level,� the official said.
Currently, the number of sanctioned posts of entry-level PG doctors (in the rank of registrar/demonstrator) is 746. The requirement will shoot up in the coming days, with the coming of new hospitals and institutions.
