Telangana DME extends Duty Hours for Doctors, faces flak

Hyderabad: The recent circular by Telangana Director of Medical Education (DME) that extended the evening duty hours of doctors by two hours is being heavily criticized by the doctors in the State.

Healthcare Reforms Doctors Association (HRDA) has claimed such an order to be a violation of earlier rules which mentioned that the duty timings of doctors were from 9am to 4 pm.

Besides the association also referred to the lack of required infrastructure, shortage of faculties in the government health facilities and claimed the DME order to be a "public stunt".

In the concerned circular dated 22.07.2022, the State DME referred to the problems faced by the patients, who need to wait long for getting treatment, as the reason for issuing such an order.

"During review meetings of the DME side institutions by the Hon'ble Minister Sir it was noticed that many patients who are coming from far off placed need to wait for one or two days to complete the investigations and get treatment prescription. Not only this due to increase in patient load in OPs there is a need to run evening OPs in all the General and Maternity Hospitals," mentioned the DME circular.

Issuing instructions in this regard, the State DME extended the duty hours of doctors and mentioned, "The daily outpatient should start at 9 AM and continue till last patient is seen and in General and Maternity Hospitals evening clinics from 4 PM to 6 PM should be started on all working days."

Among other orders, the DME directed to start issuing out patient slip from 7.30 AM, ensure that blood investigations ordered in the morning are ready the same day and treatment is being prescribed in the evening clinics after reviewing the reports. Besides, the DME instructed that the lab sample collection and report issue counter should be functional during the OP timings. 

Issuing the circular, the State DME directed all the superintendents to immediately implement the instructions.

However, HRDA criticized the order as it claimed that the circular was nothing but a "public stunt" by Health officials. The association also claimed that such an order extending the duty hours violated the G.O Ms No 816 which defines the duty hours from 9am to 4pm.

While sharing the DME circular on Twitter, the association also included another order issued by Telangana Health Department which recently decided to withdraw 357 posts of Tutors. Referring to the condition of the government medical facilities, which are running without the required infrastructure, the association claimed, "Shelved specialists recruitment in medical colleges, existing shortage of faculty, no allowances, no stipend for residents on par with AIIMS/NIMS, no integrated laboratory information system(LIS) to dispatch daily reports."

It has been claimed by the association that there is not even necessary infrastructure for taking print outs of reports.

Also Read: Exorbitant Fees charged for Registration of Medical Degrees in Telangana: Doctors write to State Medical Council