Kerala health minister serves ultimatum to 'missing' doctors

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Health minister K K Shailaja has served an ultimatum to those who are staying away from duty on unauthorized absence in the health department. As per the instructions from the minister, additional chief secretary (health) Rajeev Sadanandan has issued a circular stating that those who are on unauthorized absence should report back for duty before January 15.

The minister has asked to take strict action against those who fail to rejoin duty after January 15, which includes termination from service. She has ordered all the district medical officers to prepare a detailed, category-wise list of employees who have not reported for duty after the deadline.

The minister said those who are willing to rejoin should appear before the respective heads of the departments and obtain placement based on the decisions taken by the department heads. The department heads have also been asked to submit the list of those who fail to rejoin to the DMOs before January 31.

Already it has been reported that about 90 doctors from medical education and health service sector are on unauthorized absence. Among them, 36 doctors have been terminated from service and the remaining have been served notice.

The health minister said that when the state was facing severe floods and the government was facing epidemic threat in these areas, the shortage of staff had affected the works. It is against this backdrop that it has been decided to take action against those who are on unauthorized absence.

The government has decided to terminate the service of these employees and report the vacancies to the state public service commission. It has been found that in the past many had opted for five years' leave and have never reported back for duty. However, these posts are not reported as vacant even after many years. The exercise launched by the health minister is to find out these missing employees.