No Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (Physiatrist) specialist HoD in PGI Chandigarh since 2009
If you have suffered from a
stroke and need proper rehabilitation, PGI is not your place of care, as
there is no physical medicine and medical rehabilitation specialist
(PMR) HoD physiatrist since 2009. There is an orthopaedician instead. What
kind of wheelchair or braces is required can only be recommended by a
physiatrist, say experts.
In fact, the institute had placed an
advertisement for the post of professor in the PMR department on April
24 last year and changed the recruitment rules. These rules allowed
orthopaedicians with less experience in PMR to join.The recruitment
rules were changed after four months on August 6 and the advertisement
was withdrawn subsequently .
PGI is not only disabled-unfriendly
institute, the rehabilitation services for the disabled has been
compromised with new recruitment rules which were accepted in 2016.
“There are few physiatrists with requisite experience required all over
the country . I had applied for the post of the professor and despite
the fact that there was no other such specialists who had over 14 years
of experience as I had, the post was left
vacant,“ said professor V S Gogia, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of
Medical Sciences, Lucknow.
As per the MCI and the UPSC rules (a
copy of which is with the TOI), which the AIIMS follows, priority is
given to a physiatrist with an experience of 14 years. However, if the
specialist is not available, MD in surgery , orthopaedics or medicine
may apply with same years of experience in PMR. The PGI's new
advertisement has relaxed six years for non PMR, while for a qualified
PMR, the experience remains 14 years for the post of professor.
Recently , a health activist based in New Delhi, Dr Satendra Singh, had
been invited by the Ministry of health and family welfare (GNCTD) after he
proposed setting up of a department of physical medicine and medical
rehabilitation in all government colleges in Delhi. “The institute in
its advertisement has equated physiotherapist with a PMR. The
recruitment rules have been reshaped, which is against MCI norms and
smacks of vested interests,“ said Dr Satendra. However, PGI officiating
director Dr Subash Varma said, “These recruitment rules have been
changed before I occupied this post. Even AIIMS has the same rules as we
have."
Times of India, Chandigarh, 16 Feb 2017
Following my
Facebook post where I wrote an open letter to Health Minister on the neglect of Rehabilitation services in the PGI Chandigarh, TOI Chandigarh carried the above story and also highlighted how there advertisement equated paramedical physiotherapists with MD/DNB Physiatrists. Full letter is reproduced below:
An Open Letter to Health Minister on the PMR mess at PGI
To,
Shri J.P.Nadda ji
The Honorable Health Minister
Government of India
New Delhi
Sir,
Rehabilitation is a process aimed at enabling persons with disabilities
to attain and maintain optimal, physical, sensory, intellectual,
psychological environmental or social function levels. At the outset, I
declare that I have no conflict of interest. I am a MD Physiology and
have no relation to Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PMR) or
Orthopedic specialty. However, as a doctor with disability and a
disability rights activist, I have petitioned State Commissioner
(Disabilities), to direct Health Department of the Govt of the Delhi to
instruct Medical Directors of the three hospitals under them to set up
PMR department at the earliest. I have also written to Medical Council
of India (MCI) to start Disability Medicine in medical curriculum and
petitioned National Human Rights Commission on the accessibility of
medical institutions in the Country.
The Department of PMR at PGIMER Chandigarh
was created in 2008 to fulfill the Institute’s mandate of providing
skilled manpower in this medical specialty, besides catering to the
Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) and patients of functionally
debilitating conditions from north India in the PGIMER catchment areas.
This had become necessary after, in the back-drop of Persons with
Disabilities Act 1995, India became one of the signatories to United
Nations Conventions on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (
#UNCRPD) and it became a duty of the state to provide Rehabilitation Services to PwDs.
In March 2009, then Professor & Head of the Department repatriated back to his parent Institute (All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi).
The Department of PMR at PGIMER has been under part-time, care-taker
Head of the department since April 2009. The incumbent part-time,
care-taker head of the Department is neither a PMR specialist nor has
any previous PMR experience. The department therefore is without full
time PMR Specialist HoD since April 2009 and has reduced to just a
glorified physiotherapy service only. Even Neurology dept at PGI has
been referring patients to PMR Dept of CMC Ludhiana.
The Court
of Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities has earlier
instructed MCI vide CCPD No.9-3/CCD/2007 dated 15 May 2008 that
“doctors not trained on rehabilitation should restrict their treatment
of children with disabilities to their medical illness/disease or else
action be initiated against such practices under relevant section of
MCI.”
The interviews were held for the post of Professor of PMR
in 2015 and 2016 but the only candidate having the required PMR
qualification and requisite experience was not selected. Moreover, the
faculty recruitment rules were changed during the recruitment process
last August, as the post was withdrawn (06 October 2016) and
re-advertised (07 October 2016) incorporating arbitrary and illogical
eligibility criteria against MCI norms for non-PMR specialists.
In
the new recruitment rules, for faculty in PMR, MS (Orthopedics) was also
added as one of the eligibility qualifications. The experience criteria
for MS (Ortho) candidates were also relaxed. A PMR Specialist needs to
have 14, 10, 6 and 3 years of experience for the posts of Professor,
Additional Professor, Associate Professor and Assistant Professor in PMR
respectively, while a non-PMR Specialist (read MS Orthopedics)
candidate needs only 8, 5, 3 and 2 years of experience in PMR out of 14,
10, 6 and 3 years for the same posts.
In fact, AIIMS Delhi,
UPSC and MCl of India require 2 years of additional PMR training for
non-PMR specialists (MS Orthopedics, MD General Medicine, MS General
Surgery) to be considered for PMR faculty/consultant posts.
With
the passage of the new Disability Act, it has become all the more
important that strong PMR Dept be there to cater to the obligations of
the state as provided under the RPWD Act 2016 and Article 25,26 of the
UNCRPD. It is therefore requested to revive the rehab services at PGI
Chandigarh by:
a) Appointing a full time PMR Specialist as Professor and Head of the Department; and
If at all the PMR faculty recruitment rules are to be revisited and
modified, the inputs should be from PMR Specialists in other National
Institutes (AIIMS/JIPMER/NIMHANS)/medical colleges with PMR teaching
departments, and
Doctors with Disabilities.
#Disability #CRPD #RPWD #Rehabilitation #Physiatry #PMR
