KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
The Health Minister Choudhary Lal Singh Wednesday said that the department will not rescind its decision of transferring Indian System of Medicine (ISM) doctors even as the agitated medicos protested for second day today against the “arbitrary” order.
Talking to KNS, Singh said that the departments will “in no way” revoke its decision.
About 35 ISM doctors have been transferred by the health department from Kashmir province to Jammu region to work in ISM dispensaries.
Dr Mohammad Jamal, President of the Association of the ISM doctors said that the doctors have served 13 years to people in far flung areas of all the three regions of the state.
“We worked tirelessly as contractual and ad-hoc doctors after we were hired in 2001. After 13 long years of our punctual duty and struggle, the government regularized our services in 2013. During these 13 years, we served people in remote and inaccessible areas. But the government is transferring us again after two years to far flung areas,” Jamal said.
He said these “transfers are arbitrary and will cripple” healthcare in Kashmir.
The Health Minister said that these doctors from Kashmir were “hired on contractual basis” against the posts vacant in ISM dispensaries in Jammu region.
“When the doctors were regularized, they managed their transfers to Kashmir due to which 64 dispensaries were closed. The department had made their internal arrangement which was totally fraud. In order to make these dispensaries functional, the doctors have been transferred,” Singh said.
Singh said that till new doctors from the areas and from the region are not found to replace these doctors they will have to be posted there “even till their retirement”.
