Odisha govt issues notice to absentee doctors

Unable to locate as many as 613 absentee doctors across the state, the Odisha government today issued a public notice in newspapers asking them to respond to the show cause notices within a month or face legal actions.
"Since it is not possible to serve the draft charges on these 613 medical officers individually due to non-availability of their addresses, all 613 absentee doctors are hereby notified to appear personally to receive the draft charges from the government in the health and family welfare department on any working day within a period of ten days," the notice said.
The absentee doctors were also told to submit a written statement within the next 20 days.

"If any officer does not appear to receive the draft charges and submit his/her statement of defence within the given time of 30 (10+20) days, it will be deemed that the draft charges have been served on him or her and action in the the departmental proceeding as deemed proper will be taken in his/her absence," the notice said.
The health and family welfare minister Atanu S Nayak said the government issued the notice to doctors as they could not be located by the department.
"Attempts have been made to ascertain their addresses to communicate with them, but their whereabouts could not be known as they have not intimated their addresses either to their immediate authorities or to the director of health services or other official agencies," the minister said.

Stating that the state government had earlier dismissed 67 doctors on charge of their unauthorised leaves for long period, the minister said the government would not hesitate to take actions as per the law.
He said these doctors remained away from government hospitals after taking leave.
Nayak, however, said the state government was planning appointment of 370 doctors on ad hoc basis within two to three days in order to meet the shortage of medical officers.