Fake doctors a threat to workers in tea gardens in Assam

HEALTH IN TEA GARDENS

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Fake doctors have become a threat to the lives of thousands of workers in tea gardens in Assam.

And the threat is growing bigger every day. The majority of doctors refuse to work in tea gardens, owing to poor health infrastructures, low salary and threats to personal safety and security. Almost 50% of tea gardens are running without doctors. Besides the non-availability of doctors, hundreds of posts are lying vacant in the garden hospitals. These include those 660 pharmacists, 200 GNM nurses, 300 ANM nurses, 175 health assistants, 350 laboratory technicians and 600 ward boys.

As per the Tea Plantation Labourers Act, 1951, the tea gardens appoint doctors for their workers. Tea gardens employ doctors, but the State Labour Department monitors the doctors works through a medical officer in each district. Most of these posts are currently lying vacant.

"Fake doctors are exploiting such situation in gardens. They have got themselves appointed as doctors by some tea gardens. These fake doctors manipulate their academic documents, certificates and steal the identities of genuine doctors. During the last few years, the police arrested nearly 20 such fake doctors working in different gardens," a source in the Assam branch of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) said.

Sources said that fake doctors maintain a very cordial relationship with their patients and usually keep shifting from one garden to another at frequent intervals to avoid detection. It is not possible for all employers to verify forged documents and acute scarcity of doctors often results in making appointments in haste.

The menace of fake doctors has become severe after the hair-raising lynching of a 73-year-old doctor in a tea garden hospital in Upper Assam in 2019. That incident started deterring other doctors from serving in garden hospitals.

The Plantation Doctors Committee, Assam branch of IMA, has asked the tea gardens to layers of scrutiny and vigil while appointing doctors.

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