Rural rule violators get KMC notice, but with little effect

Officials track only 216 of 1,000 errant docs as they changed addresses

The Karnataka Medical Council (KMC) has started sending notices to doctors who failed to serve their one-year ma­n­d­a­tory term in rural areas. This follows a direction from Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ramesh Kumar.

The minister had, in a letter to KMC registrar Dr Sadananda Murthy, directed that the registration of such doctors be cancelled. The department, however, is struggling to track present addresses of many of these doctors as they have moved out. The KMC, so far, has sent out 216 notices.

“The notices are being served, but they are not responding. The bond is taken at the time of admission, but students change their addresses after some time, during graduation and post-graduation. There is no way we can track their latest addresses,” said Shalini Rajneesh, principal secretary of health and family welfare.

She said it took one year of investigations to find the addresses of the errant doctors. “Of the around 1,000 errant doctors registered, we could find the addresses of only 216. It took nearly four months of manual search to track them,” said Shalini.

“Doctors ask for city-like facilities in rural areas. Even after offering them different allowances and facilities, they fail to take up compulsory service in community health centres and district hospitals. Some of the reasons doctors are reluctant to serve in villages are there are no educational institutions for their children, health centres are not equipped well and lack paramedics.”

“The government directed us to send notices. Either doctors have to pay a penalty between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh or they should do government service,” said Murthy.

This is the first time KMC has sent out show-cause notices to doctors who have violated the code. Although it is mandatory for doctors to update their addresses with KMC, they have not done that.

Officials said as it is difficult to track their addresses, they have given public notices through advertisements in national newspapers. But they said they are not sure of the responses as the addresses are not their latest.