The Indian Medical Association (IMA) criticised the Bihar government’s decision on Friday to suspend Dr Binod Kumar Singh, medical superintendent of Patna’s Nalanda Medical College Hospital (NMCH), without giving him an opportunity to defend, and said it will take legal recourse if the government does not revoke its decision, IMA national president Dr Sahajanand Prasad Singh said on Saturday.
The action was unfair to an officer of his stature and repute, said Dr Singh in separate letters to the Bihar governor Phagu Chauhan and chief minister Nitish Kumar, seeking their intervention to revoke the suspension order. The letter was signed jointly by IMA secretary general Dr Jayesh Lele.
The issue seemed to snowball into a controversy with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also supporting the suspended doctor and demanding an apology from deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav, also the health minister, for what it said was his “immature” and “insensitive” action and “autocratic style of governance”.
Yadav suspended Dr Binod Singh on Friday, after inspecting the hospital and interacting with relatives of some patients the previous evening. Yadav was dissatisfied with the manner in which the doctors were treating patients, lack of medicines and upkeep of the hospital.
“The minister should not have acted in the manner he has done. The additional chief secretary and the additional secretary, who were accompanying the health minister during the inspection of the hospital should have at least advised the minister to seek an explanation from Dr Singh before suspending him. A gazetted officer, who holds the charge of professor and head of the department (paediatrics) as well as the superintendent, cannot be removed without giving the person concerned an opportunity to explain his stand. The government’s action is wrong and in bad taste,” said Dr Sahajanand Singh in a telephonic conversation from New Delhi.
“IMA will seek legal redressal if the Bihar government does not revoke its decision,” said Dr Singh.
Interestingly, Dr Binod Singh had requested the government to relinquish him from the post of the superintendent when there was shortage of Oxygen during the peak of Covid-19 between April and May last year.
“Our hospital was not getting the requisite supply of Oxygen. I had then told the government that dozens of patients may die due to scarcity of Oxygen, and in such an unfortunate event, the responsibility of their death will be fixed on me. So, I should be removed as the superintendent, but the government did not heed my request then and asked me to continue,” said Dr Binod Singh.
“I have no lust for the superintendent’s post and I had requested the government in the past to remove me, but the manner in which it has removed me now is wrong, unjustified and unconstitutional. I will first request the government to reconsider its decision before knocking the doors of the judiciary,” he added.
He said providing medicines at the hospital, ensuring repairs in the bathroom and any other infrastructure related issue, were the mandate of the Bihar Medical Services Infrastucture Corporation Limited (BMSICL), which was not under him. The BMSICL did not act even as he repeatedly requested it, he added.
“I had even flagged the issue of the hospital running out of intravenous fluids during the video-conferencing with the health brass a couple of days back. We give indent for medicines, but will provide only those to the patients that the BMSICL makes available to us,” said Dr Singh.
Many relatives of patients had complained to Yadav that medicines were not available at the hospital and they had to buy them from open market. The minister was also surprised to find that non-dengue patients were kept in the same ward of dengue patients.
“It was a mistake to mix patients when we had separate isolation ward for dengue patients, but the responsibility of segregating patients was of the medicine department,” said Dr Singh.
Meanwhile, BJP spokesperson Nikhil Anand said Yadav had abused and accused the doctor fraternity for which he should apologise.
“It was Tejashwi’s propaganda as a minister to go to inspect the NMCH. He had gone there for a photo opportunity. To suspend a sensible and senior doctor, who was a victim of Covid-19, and still did remarkable work during the over two years of pandemic, despite the lack of hospital infrastructure, smacks of his autocratic style of governance. The action is grossly wrong,” said Anand.
Dr Singh was suspended for alleged lapses in effective control of dengue, being careless in his work, disregarding departmental directives and lack of administrative competence, said the government order on the department’s website.
