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| SKIMS blesses influential doc with another foreign trip | | | Early Times Report
Srinagar, Dec 4: The SK Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) Srinagar continues to shower undue incentives on an influential doctor by letting him go on foreign trips again and again.
In the latest, despite reservations from the hospital medicos, he has again been granted "vacations abroad" but at the cost of patient care at the hospital.
The doctor, who is a surgical oncologist, was recently assigned the charge of deciding upon every cancer surgery, which the hospital has to conduct. "This means that doctors had to submit an application before him for conduction of surgery and thus no operation could be conducted without his formal approval. But now all of a sudden, in brazen violation of service conduct rules and threat to patient care, the SKIMS has granted him one more leave for vacations abroad," said some senior doctors, asking not to be identified.
They said the undue incentives have been showered on the surgeon only because he continues to enjoy influence in the corridors of power.
Officials said during the previous National Conference-led regime, the surgeon was so infamous for foreign trips that the SKIMS Governing Body had decided to terminate him from services.
Official documents reveal that the then Director, SKIMS, Dr Showkat Ali Zargar had sent a case of termination to the Civil Secretariat, pleading that the surgeon was unauthorizedly absent from his services thereby affecting patient care.
The then Chief Secretary after approving the case for termination had sent the file to the then Chief Minister Omar Abdullah who was also the Chairperson of the SKIMS Governing Body for his signature.
However, officials said instead of signing the termination orders, Omar came up in support of the medico as the two are understood to be enjoying good relations. "He (Omar) wrote a note on the file that the surgeon be given a chance to plead his position as to why he was on vacations abroad at the expense of state exchequer. Though there was no legal logic in his (Omar's) plea, we had to go by his diktat," recapped a SKIMS official.
Some months later the doctor returned to Kashmir and was allowed to resume duties without any inquiry. Thereafter, the sources said, he kept travelling abroad quite frequently.
While the incumbent PDP-led regime was expected to initiate action, the doctor proved more powerful than before. "By now he is close to the new government due to his contacts abroad," said a source.
After the change of guard at SKIMS, in the wake of retirement of Dr Zargar, the influential doctor is understood to have improved ties with the new administration.
"An outsider who spends the day sitting in the chamber of the SKIMS's boss and introduces himself as his 'brother' helped him improve relations. The influential medico made friends with this outsider and through him he got his foreign tour sanctioned," said a source privy to the deal.
Sources said a delegation of senior medicos recently brought this matter into the notice of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti who is also the chairperson of the SKIMS Governing Body.
A senior official in Chief Minister's Secretariat said the matter has come to the notice of the government. "Madam (CM) is visiting SKIMS in a day or two and things will be set right," the official told Early Times. |
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