Chandigarh, October 2
Three PGI governing body members, Mr Suresh Chandel, a Lok Sabha member, and two other Chennai-based doctors, could be in the line of fire of the Ministry for Health and Family Welfare for their utterances regarding certain decisions made by the apex body of the institute.
The ministry is learnt to have taken a serious view of the press conference addressed by Mr Chandel, a BJP MP from Himachal Pradesh, who is a member of the governing and institute bodies. He had addressed mediapersons in the city, giving details of the decisions of the institute body meeting held in New Delhi on September 29.
The two other Chennai-based governing body members, Dr Vimla Isaac and Dr Muthukumaraswamy, could also face the wrath of the ministry for having expressed their displeasure over the decision of making Prof Sudha Suri as the Dean.
The two had expressed their views in the court where a case had been filed by head of Gynaecology department, Prof Sudha Suri, contesting the decision of the body.
“Though the body members have barely two months left as its tenure will be over on December 1, but still the ministry can react just to send across a signal that such “irresponsible” behaviour was uncalled for and would not be tolerated in future,” said a Health Ministry official.
“It is known that Mr Chandel and Prof S.K. Sharma have virtually been on a warpath, but making utterances against each other publicly did not behove of the members of senior repute,” remarked a senior PGI doctor.
A section of the doctors at the PGI have in fact been trying to garner support in favour of Professor Sharma by terming the institute body decision to direct him to proceed on leave as “political and bureaucratic” interference in the affairs of the institute. However, majority of the doctors feel that it being the decision of the apex body of the institute it would not be appropriate to react.
Another section opposed to Professor Sharma feels that Mr Chandel had rather helped many people by pleading their case and raising other issues concerning the PGI when they failed to get response from the administration.
