VIJAYAWADA: Ophthalmologists working at government teaching hospitals have questioned warnings issued to them at the behest of top health authorities over conduct of cataract surgeries under YSR Kanti Velugu scheme.
Sources said based on directives of top health officials, the medical education director issued a notice to heads of departments (HoDs) of ophthalmology in all government teaching hospitals. The HoDs had been directed to warn eye doctors, who had performed poorly in performing cataract surgeries under the YSR Kanti Velugu scheme in AP. The director further wanted HoDs to initiate action if ophthalmologists did not improve their performance. The notice underlined that it is the basic duty of an ophthalmic specialist to conduct cataract surgery.
Objecting to this, several eye doctors at government hospitals questioned how explanation could be sought from them when medical authorities themselves had not fixed any monthly or yearly targets of performing cataract surgeries on “Avva and Tata” under Kanti Velugu.
It is learnt health authorities collected data of cataract surgeries carried out under YSR Kanti Velugu at all government teaching hospitals and other institutions from November, 2020 till-date. Subsequently, notices of poor or non-performance had been served to nearly 75 of doctors on grounds that they had performed less than 25 surgeries.
Many serving ophthalmologists, including professors, have turned critical of top health mandarins for evaluating their professional performance based on number of cataract surgeries, even though they are responsible for several other duties. These include teaching medical students at PG, UG and paramedics levels, patient care, attending to emergency and medico-legal cases, conduct of exams, court duties and a host of other responsibilities.
An eye specialist of a Visakhapatnam government hospital said: “If our performance is assessed based on a number of cataract surgeries, we will take up only surgeries. Then, who will teach the students, conduct practical exams, and attend to patients and emergency cases. It is unfair to seek such explanation as though we are not working at all.”
Further, eye doctors have pointed out that during both first and second waves of Coronavirus, majority of government health institutions had been converted into Covid Care Centres and operation theatres closed.
“This is the reason why a senior medical professional must head the health department. In fact, GO 64 must be cancelled, as it gives enormous powers to even junior IAS officers to suspend certain categories of doctors by targeting them on one pretext or another without any rationality,” one of senior ophthalmologists said.
Repeated attempts to contact director of medical education Dr. M. Raghavendra Rao to elicit his version on the issue proved futile.
