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50 AIIMS medicos served notice for absenteeism from duty |
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Written by Chandan Das
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Saturday, 01 December 2007 |
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In a significant move that has snowballed into a fresh crisis at the country’s premier medical institute, the administration of the All India Institute for Medical Science (AIIMS) on Friday served notices to 50 ‘erring’ doctors for missing during their duty hours.
The genesis of the problem lay in a strike called by the resident doctors of the institute. Although the medicos called off their strike on Thursday following the Delhi High Court’s warning them of deducting their salaries and revoking their licenses in case its orders were not adhered to.
The agitation received a a mixed response as only the medicos, who back the AIIMS director P Venugopal abstained from work, while those opposing him and backing the Union health minister Anbumani Ramadoss attended OPD and other services.
The clash between AIIMS director P Venugopal and Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss took an ugly turn on Thursday when the AIIMS resident doctors and employees called a strike to protest against the government's approval of the controversial AIIMS Bill.
The agitating staff asserted that the government had approved the Bill with a view to remove Venugopal from the post as the new law suggests that henceforth the institute’s director will have a fixed tenure of five years and retire by 65. Since Venugopal has crossed both, his departure seems to be certain, they said.
Interestingly, Venugopal has himself called for truce and the strike was called off after he pleaded with to the agitating doctors to resume duty and later moved the Supreme Court challenging the Bill. In fact, this is not the first time that the AIIMS doctors are abstaining from their duty. The incident was the third this year
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