Doctors
Uttar Pradesh rural doctors angry over attendance
By IANS
Mar 19, 2006 - 8:18:00 PM

Village heads in Uttar Pradesh are to monitor the attendance of doctors at rural health centres, but medics angry at the move have threatened to strike work unless the order is withdrawn.

The health secretary last week directed district chief medical officers to take the attendance of doctors at primary health centres and community health centres with the help of village chiefs or other local officials.

The decision follows the failure of the government to ensure proper treatment of the poor and needy in the health centres in villages and towns.

According to the order, the district chief medical officers would send weekly reports on the attendance of doctors, and these would be verified and ratified by the village heads and block development heads.

The doctors resent the move.

D.P. Misra, who heads the Provincial Medical Service Doctors Association, said: "We have conveyed our reservations against this order to the government and are not going to take it lying down.

"Getting a doctor's attendance verified by illiterate village heads or block development chiefs would be extremely humiliating."

He added: "If the order is not withdrawn within the next three days, government hospital doctors will proceed on a state-wide strike."

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