Bengal govt fines 34 jr docs Rs 20 lakh each for not serving bond period
Times of India | 7 December 2024
Kolkata: The state health department has directed 34 senior resident doctors to pay a penal amount of Rs 20 lakh each for failing to serve their bond period after completing their MD/MS or DM (superspecialty) courses. Health officials said the 34 will get their original documents only after they deposit the amount.
According to existing rules, doctors who studied postgraduate or post-doctoral courses at state medical colleges are mandated to serve three years at govt-designated locations after completing the courses, including one year at the mother institute (where they did the course), which is called the bond period. Failing this, they must pay a bond amount of Rs 10 lakh a year to the govt.
The number of doctors fined this time (34) is the largest to be penalised in one go in recent memory, say senior health department officials. The comes around seven weeks after junior doctors "withdrew" their "hunger strike" demanding justice in the RG Kar rape-murder case.
The 34 SRs who were penalised span across medical colleges like IPGMER, Medical College Hospital Kolkata, NRS Medical College, Calcutta National Medical College and North Bengal Medical College. Surprisingly, the list does not contain any junior doctor from RG Kar.
"These SRs overstayed in their mother institutes, completing the entire bond tenure in those institutes instead of serving two years in places where they were posted. This is in violation of govt order," said a senior health official.
Seniors in the health department insisted the action was "routine". "We are duty-bound to provide adequate medical services to everyone, including those staying in rural areas. The state heavily subsidises medical education, and it is unfortunate that some of them do not want to serve people in rural areas. Nothing more should be read into a routine decision," a senior health department official told TOI.
"If these 34 SRs did not serve their bond in places where they were asked to go, how come the authority of their respective medical colleges did not report this? We feel that something is amiss in this," said a senior doctor.
Another senior doctor mentioned another order of enquiry against 25 other SRs in August this year for a similar violation. "Within two weeks, the health department released their original documents, saying that they completed their bond tenure. The whole issue is confusing to many of us," said the senior doctor.