Zargar after Zargar after Zargar at SKIMS is OK

But gap after gap after gap between the joints is a flaw; Allow private practice

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Jun 5: Appointment of a new Director for the prestigious Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) was a matter of interest for one and all after Dr Abdul Hamid Zargar showed no inclination for a second term. There were pessimists in academia and intelligentsia but the men in power had predominantly Dr Showkat Ali Zargar’s selection a foregone conclusion. For them, it was not simply a matter of mundane continuity--- anesthetist Dr Meraj-ud-din Zargar in Farooq Abdullah’s government, endocrinologist Dr Abdul Hamid Zargar in Ghulam Nabi Azad’s government and gastroenterologist Dr Showkat Ali Zargar in Omar Abdullah’s government. They knew it all that none among rest of the dozen-odd candidates had the required political clout and clientele.

While the famous gastroenterologist did his job, his detractors left no stone unturned to berate him. If well-placed bureaucratic sources are to be believed, contenders for top slot of the tertiary care hospital-cum-deemed medical university acquired footage of a pro-Azadi demonstration being led by Dr Zargar and managed to deliver it straight on Chief Minister and Chairman of the hospital’s Governing Body. They even arranged copies of an FIR registered against the top contender and denigrated him as an “anti-national”.

Neutral observers are now visibly relieved over the way Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has not been dictated by a character assassination campaign against a senior faculty of the SKIMS. However, sections of intelligentsia in Srinagar seem to be genuinely a little concerned over the possible impact of the CM’s decision over his recent campaign against private practice. Many of them view it as an irony that the city’s busiest private practitioner has been picked up to, inter alia, discourage the menace of private practice among the SKIMS faculty.

A very competent gastroenterologist, Dr Zargar has an unmatched clinical profile. Private practice being banned for SKIMS faculty, Dr Zargar’s clinic has been frequently raided by sleuths of State Vigilance Organisation in recent times. Like 30-odd of his fellow faculty members, he remained unfazed by the non-serious Police actions. He also remained struck off from the employer for about eight years on account of his continued unauthorized absence and job in a foreign country. Even his controversial reinstatement was largely attributed to his cousin and former Director Dr Meraj-ud-din Zargar.

Raising serious questions of ethics, Dr Showkat Zargar was, among other members of Search Committee, also interviewed by Dr Meraj-ud-din Zargar, his close relative. In fact, yet another member of the Search Committee and former Principal of Government Medical College Srinagar, Dr Ghulam Qadir Allaqaband too interviewed his personal cardiologist Dr Khursheed Iqbal. It was reminiscent of some PSC members interviewing their own relatives in certain gazetted recruitments. 

Still, most of the people associated with the medical profession are not essentially complaining why relatives and patients of at least two candidates had been appointed as members of the Search Committee. That is something head of the Search Committee and Chief Secretary Madhav Lal may or may not like to explain.

Discussions over the private practice, suspensions and reinstatements besides ethics and moralities have, in fact, remained confined to the domain of intelligentsia and bureaucracy. In absence of infrastructure, common man sounds to be heavily in favour of the private practice of the doctors of SKIMS and the state Health and Medical Education Departments. Even the founder-director of SKIMS and now a member of the State’s Task Force on Health, Dr Nagpal, has been advocating private practice, albeit with the condition that the clinicians should essentially conduct the patients beyond office hours with the SKIMS premises and part with one part of their income in favour of the hospital. “Despite best of efforts, Government of UP failed to implement the ban”, Dr Nagpal told this writer earlier this year.

Paid advertisements of the associations of medical representatives in Srinagar dailies, audaciously expressing gratitude to Omar Abdullah government and congratulations to Dr Zargar over his appointment as Director SKIMS, are a bizarre indication of the state’s public recognition of private practice. Showkat Ali’s predecessor Dr Abdul Hamid Zargar was severely assailed by his detractors over the permissiveness he allegedly granted to an influential brigade of the clinicians. Arguably more assertive than his successor, the famous endocrinologist failed to curb it till he demitted office last week.

One way to plug the gapes in the government’s decades-old policy may be to legitimize private practice but recover entire amount of the non-practising allowance they have drawn illegitimately since the day of a doctors’ becoming Assistant Professor. Operating clinics within office hours must be strictly prohibited and a publicly notified fee structure must be regulated. Besides, there should be total ban on the SKIMS staff’s enjoying the hospitality of pharmaceutical companies, particularly sponsorship of national and international conferences. We need an approver to eliminate the anarchy. We have, fortunately or unfortunately, got one in Dr Showkat Ali Zargar.

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