Punjab’s health department is receiving flak for offering medical officers a consolidated salary of Rs. 15,000 per month.
95 of 345 medical officers recruited recently haven’t joined duty due to the meagre salary and 2 year probation period. Medical officers are being offered an initial probationary salary of Rs. 15,000 per month. Last year 100 of the 404 doctors selected, didn’t join the government assignment.
400 MOs have been working under this year old setup which is based on a Jan 1, 2015 notification that fixed 15k as the initial salary for a 2 year probation period for MBBS doctors. The current batch of 300 doctors who will complete their 2 year probation period in August 2017, haven’t received any raise or appraisal to date.
“How can we expect the MBBS pass-outs to survive on a paltry sum of `15,000. Money is too meagre, especially considering the fact that most of these doctors are posted far away from their native places,” said President of the Punjab Civil Medical Services (PCMS) association.
The PCMS has held a sit in protest seeking to do away with the probation period for all MOs.
By the numbers
When 104 selected MOs didn’t join duty last year, principal health secretary, Vini Mahajan wrote to the finance department seeking permission to allow recruitment of MOs at full salary. The finance department rejected the plea. However, the state department was allowed to convince the government to recruit specialists (MDs) at full pay via walk in interviews.
So what does the salary for medical officer with and without probation look like? A probationer medical officer’s salary is Rs 15,000 (consolidated) while a regular medical officer earns Rs 61,500 (approximately).
Tough Apoointments & Doctor Shortage
The new set of MOs are expected to servve in ‘difficult’ to ‘very difficult’ stations. With ‘very difficult’ or ‘D’ stations needing 42 MOs and difficult or ‘C’ stations needing 68 doctors.
Health department’s current challenge in filling up posts stands as such – 23% of vacancies for specialist doctors across the state. No candidates turned up for 41 Radiologist and 28 Psychiatrist posts. Of the 111 posts for Peadiatricians and 48 for General Medicine advertised, only 1 selection could be made. Similar shortages were seen when hiring for anesthetists, surgeons, gynaecologists and orthopedicians.
Unreasonable Probation Period
This past Saturday, the Punjab government in a further regressive move has decided to extend the probation period from 2 to 3 years. This rule will be applicable to the 12,000+ posts of different specializations across six state government departments. The new joinees will be paid initial pay drawn on the day of appointment for 3 years, following which full salary and permitted allowances will be disbursed as per relevant salary set. This ruling could further lead to a drop in number of doctors joining for MO and other roles due to lack of adequate salary.
With inputs from Hindustan Times