Model blood bank docs on tenterhooks

The fate of doctors at the Jaiprabha Model Blood Bank here continues to hang in the balance.

The doctors, who are working on lien from the Bihar state health services ever since the blood bank became functional in 2005, are in a fix over the July 11 notification of the health department, cancelling deputation of medical officers who have completed three years or more at a particular place.

While health department is said to have agreed in principle to retain the doctors at the blood bank on lien and not drawing salary from the department out of the purview of the order, it is yet to clarify stand officially.

If sources in the department are to be believed, principal secretary, health, Vyas Ji, had last month asked joint secretary Sanjay Kumar to put up the case for exempting these doctors from the July 11 order. Though nearly a month has elapsed, the same has not been done as yet.

Though Kumar is believed to have instructed the officer concerned to process the case and get the principal secretary’s approval, it is the pen-pushers in section 2 of the health department who are now dragging their feet. Efforts to contact Kumar proved futile, as he did not respond to HT’s call.

Interestingly, in the face of these developments, civil surgeon, Patna, Dr Lakhender Prasad, on August 18 cancelled the deputation of Dr Nawal Kishore Singh, who was deputed from the subdivisional hospital, Danapur, to the model blood bank. Dr Singh, an MD in medicine, has already been repatriated after serving the blood bank between August 5 and 27, leaving only three medical officers there.

The model blood bank, established with the support of National AIDS Control Organisation in 2005, was to have been taken over by the state government in three years. When this didn’t happen, the NACO, after initially acceding to the government’s request for extension twice, stopped funding.

Then the previous principal secretary, health, Amarjeet Sinha, had in 2011 decided, that salary to the two doctors on lien at the blood bank and technicians -there are six out of a sanctioned strength of 12 - as well as expenditure on consumables, refreshment, back-up generator, etc, be paid through the state blood transfusion council, of which he was the chairman. It has been continuing this way ever since.