27 May,2023 10:18 PM IST | Mumbai | Suraj Pandey
JJ hospital. File Pic
The resident doctors of one of the apex medical institutes of Maharashtra have submitted a written complaint against one of the top faculty doctors of the Ophthalmology department stating that there is alleged lack of surgical and academic opportunities. The top faculty has refuted all the allegations levied by resident doctors and have said that the reply was submitted to the dean.
Meanwhile, the dean has set up a three-member committee to investigate the matter.
The Ophthalmology department of the JJ Hospital is said to be one of the busiest departments as patients not only from Mumbai but from other districts of the state visit for treatment.
The resident doctors of the department have complaints of alleged injustice. The letter written by the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) to the dean states, "The resident doctors of department of Ophthalmology JJH, have raised their concerns and complaints. The complaints range from lack of surgical opportunities, lack of academics, lack of research activity and impolite behaviour that the residents face on a regular basis in the department. The primary demand of the resident doctors is that the department should run as per the NMC guidelines which at present is not happening."
The letter further reads, "JJ MARD wants to reemphasize that it will not tolerate any form of oppression of its member residents and fight for their right to education and dignity."
The letter written by Junior residents says, "Dr. T P Lahane (Ex dean and Ex DMER director, currently holding no post), along with the cooperation of head of the department have been running the department dictatorially, in a fashion that clearly violates the NMC guidelines at multiple levels. The two surgeons do almost all the surgeries that are conducted in the department, majorly consisting of the cataract surgeries. Despite JJ Hospital being a teaching institute, extremely negligible attention is paid to the academics of the residents. The sole purpose of residents in this department is to make life easier for the above surgeons while doing all the perioperative and ward work. There is a serious shortfall of faculty count in the department. Despite being one of the apex institutes of the country where a huge number of cataractsurgeries are done annually, it is shocking to say the least, the current JR 2 batch (12 months) and JR 1 batch (5 months), the total number of cataract surgeries of the combined two batches is zero."
The letter also demanded an inquiry in the matter.
When contacted, Dr. TP Lahane refuted the claim of resident doctors, he said, "These all are false claims. We are teaching them as per the NMC norms. All the 13 resident doctors of the third year have given us in writing that we have taught them surgeries. The first-year doctors who didn't even complete their 6 months how can we allow them to operate without proper training after all it is a matter of sight. We have filed our reply to the dean."
Dean of JJ group of hospital and Grant Medical College Dr. Pallavi Saple said, "I have received the complaint letter from the members of MARD. I have formed a committee headed by three senior professors to investigate the matter."
