Medical Council Issues Notice To 4166 Doctors For Skipping Bond Service in MP
Indore: Identifying the bond defaulters since the genesis of the Bond Service scheme, the State Medical Council of Madhya Pradesh has issued notice against around 4166 doctors belonging to five government medical colleges of the State.
The list of medical colleges includes Gandhi Medical College (GMC) Bhopal, Gajara Raja Medical College (GMRC) Gwalior, Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) Government Medical College Indore, Netaji Subhas CHandra Bose Medical College (NSCBMC) Jabalpur, and Shyam Shah Medical College (SSMC) Rewa.
As per the lists published by the Medical Council, the bond defaulters belong to batches starting from 2002 and extending up to 2016.
During this long period of 14 years, the Council data revealed that around 3824 doctors have not fulfilled their duties of serving in the rural areas. Besides, among the total number of 4166 doctors, 2793 medical professionals chose to opt out of the bond service terms by depositing the bond amount in the autonomous funds of the medical colleges, adds TOI.
However, a total number of 1371 doctors neither served in the rural areas, as per the bond conditions, nor did they submit the bond amount to the colleges.
The State had introduced the bond service system for those students who opt for studying in the Government Medical Colleges. As per the bond conditions, such students have to serve in rural areas of the State for a period of one year after completion of their UG or PG degrees. In case the doctors fail to serve the bond terms, they are liable to pay a certain amount to the concerned medical colleges as penalty.
Also Read: Bond Defaulters at MGM Indore: Registration of 274 doctors to get cancelled
Such bond conditions had been introduced by the State in an attempt to fill up the existing vacancies of doctors. In case of Madhya Pradesh, Rural health statistics 2019-2020 report revealed that around 97.62% (1810) posts of specialist in 309 Community health centres and 134 posts of doctors in PHC's in rural areas were vacant till March 31, 2020.
The process of tracking down the bond defaulters initiated around 2 years ago and the initiative had been taken by the Registrar of the MP Medical Council, adds TOI. Consequently, those five government medical colleges, as mentioned before, started tracking down the defaulters and started collecting penalty amount from such doctors.
The council had issued similar notice to the doctors last month as well. Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that issuing notice to 1106 doctors, who allegedly didn't fulfil their bond terms, the medical council had asked them to respond or deposit bond amount within 15 days.
In fact, Indore based Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College had taken even stricter taken against around 274 bond defaulters. The college had recommended the names of such doctors for cancellation of their registration before the State Medical Council.
In case of MGMMC Indore, the list included 133 doctors who skipped their bond duties after completing their PG diploma courses in the medical college, 84 doctors who were enrolled in PG medical courses and 57 admitted in the MBBS course.
Those doctors neither served in the rural areas as per the agreement made in the bond, nor did they submit the bond amount to the medical college in exchange of avoiding their duties.
TOI reports that MGMMC, Indore, GMC, Bhopal, GRMC, Gwalior and SSMC, Rewa have earned around Rs 59.12 crores in their autonomous funds from the bond penalty amount. In case of GMC Bhopal and MGM Indore, there were around 800 bond defaulters and from them the colleges earned respectively Rs 21.68 crore and Rs 20.05 crore in the last two years.
The amount was Rs 10 crore in case of GRMC, Gwalior and Rs 9.12 crore for SSMC Rewa. The daily further adds that in case of GRMC Gwalior, NSCBMC Jabalpur, MHM Indore and SSMC, Rewa- around 45% of the passing UG & PG (degree & diploma) students skipped bond terms in the last 14 years. For SSMC, Rewa the dedaulters are around 65% of the total students, for GRMC it is 52%, 40.78% for MGM, Indore and 36.72% students for NSCBMC Jabalpur.
Recently, the Council has once again published the name of the defaulters on its website and while commenting on the matter, the Registrar of the Medical Council Dr RK Nigam told TOI, "The council has published a list of defaulter doctors, who haven't completed rural services or deposited money, on its website."
