Taking immediate steps to check the growing indiscipline in the civil hospital Ludhiana following the unfortunate deaths of infants for the last two days, Health and Family Welfare Minister Punjab Surjeet Kumar Jayani has posted Dr. Renu as the Medical Superintendent at Civil Hospital Ludhiana after suspending Dr. Alka Mittal for negligence and carelessness bringing a bad name to the government as well as the department.Decision to this effect was taken at a high level emergent meeting of the Health department to take stock of the latest updates in Ludhiana incident presided over by the Minister. Mr. Jayani has asked the civil surgeons to personally monitor the functioning of the government hospitals besides conducting periodic surprise checks in their respective districts.
Any laxity on the part of the doctors causing any harm to the patients would not be spared. He has also directed the Deputy Commissioner Ludhiana to submit the inquiry report in this matter within seven days. He also said that strict action would be taken against the doctors found responsible of the ill-fated offense causing deaths of the infants. Adding further, the Minister said that he has already taken up the issue of appointing more doctors in the state with the Chief Minister and the posts lying vacant all across the state would be filled at the earliest. Meanwhile he has asked that Civil Surgeons to identify the hospitals with shortage of staff and has also asked them to fill the posts on the basis of user charges. Mr. Jayani has directed the Director Health services and Family Welfare to make sure the accuracy in appointing the staff in the hospitals besides inpidually supervising each and every health institution in the state. He has also asked him to keep a close tab on the overall functioning of the health institutes to avoid occurrence of such untoward incidents.
Taking strong view of the reluctance on the part of the specialized surgeons to operate during the procedures in the government hospitals, Mr. Jayani asked them to remain present in the OTs especially while handling serious delivery cases. Quoting statistics, the Minister said that the number of institutional deliveries has risen to 2 lakh per year as compared to merely 40,000 in the year 2009. Principal Secretary Health and Family Welfare Mrs. Vinni Mahajan, MD NRHM and PHSC, Mr. Husan Lal, Special Secretary Health, Mr. Vikas Garg, Director Health Services Dr. Karanjeet Singh and Director Family welfare Dr. Jatinder Kaur were present in the meeting.