KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
The government Friday said that it will accept the retirement of Government Medical College Principal Dr Rafeeque Ahmed Pampori, who has gone on “protest leave” following his differences with the Health minister Choudhary Lal Singh.
Lal Singh said that the government was going to accept the retirement of GMC principal.
“It is his (GMC Principal’s) own decision. If he wants to go, the government has no problem. We will find a deserving person to head the GMC institutes,” Singh told KNS.
“I am the minister of the health and medical education department to take decisions which are for the welfare of the people and for patients,” Singh added.
Dr Rafeeq Ahmed Pampori went on a protest leave and said that he will seek voluntary retirement from his services, which were ending in February 2018.
Dr Pampori said he has written to Health and Medical Education Department for voluntary retirement from February 1, 2016 and requesting leave from today.
“It is up to the government to accept my retirement,” Dr Pampori said. “If the government restores the dignity of the post of Principal, then I will see,” he said.
Sources in the health and medical education department said that the principal has sought voluntary retirement following “too much interference” by the minister concerned in the decision making of the GMC and its associated hospitals.
“The minister and the principal were not going well for some months after differences with the former over a number of things which were happening continuously in the running of the administration of the GMC institutes. GMC Principal was a captain of a team which was controlled by the minister himself. He had no say in the field, which is the affairs of the GMC institutes,” sources added.
Sources said that five GMC hospitals – Chest Disease, Psychiatry, GB Pant, Bones and Joints- are not functioning well because of the “direct interference” of the minister in their affairs.
“All the GMC associated hospitals are without proper Medical superintendents. Few medical superintendents have been appointed, despite objections by the principal over their appointments,” sources said.
