BHUBANESWAR: The State Government on Thursday directed chiefs of three Government medical colleges and hospitals to inquire into allegations of harassment of post graduate (PG) students by head of departments and professors.
Additional Secretary of Health and Family Welfare Department Surajit Das has asked the Director of VIMSAR at Burla, Deans and Principals of SCB Medical College and Hospital at Cuttack and MKCG Medical College at Berhampur to take appropriate action against the erring officials.
‘’The medical college authorities have been directed to submit an action taken report within seven days and ensure that such incident does not occur in future,’’ Das said.
It was alleged that the heads of departments and professors are encouraging PG students for their own personal and domestic work, thereby neglecting treatment of patients and education of students which is essential for their on job training.
Five days back, the Director of Medical Education and Training (DMET) had shot off letters to authorities of the three medical institutions along with Director of Acharya Harihar Regional Cancer Centre and Superintendent of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Post Graduate Institute of Paediatrics at Cuttack.
In his letter, DMET PC Mohapatra stated that as per the allegations, PG students are forced to do personal works by their respective department heads. The works include shopping grocery, cooking, taking children to schools, teaching their children, bringing breakfast, lunch and dinner free of cost, arranging drinks, helping them in private practice, managing celebrations like marriages and birthday ceremonies.
Apart from personal work, the students are also forced to pay hospitality cost including hotel expenses, food, site seeing and gifts for examiners during exams. Students had alleged that the activities were more than ragging since they are harassed physically and mentally.
‘’Since such allegations are grievous, we would review and conduct surprise checking by a squad periodically if the authorities fail to take any action,’’ Mohapatra stated.