Disabled doctors allege JIPMER's Office Memorandum for recruitment is insensitive and illegal

As per various senior medical professionals with disabilities, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research's Office Memorandum (OM) is insensitive and violates existing law. They alleged that the OM denies job opportunities to several disabled doctors who are already holding respective positions in reputed medical institutions.

As per reports, various senior doctors with disabilities alleged that they are not able to apply to the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research's (JIPMER) openings due to "insensitive and illogical" disability criteria.

Dr Sujith Jose, a wheelchair-bound urologist serving in a government hospital in Kerala said that he cannot apply for the same job at JIPMER as the Office Memorandum (OM) of JIPMER for recruitment of disabled medical professionals, the applicant needs to have the functional ability to sit, stand and walk among other things, as reported by News 18.

Whereas Jose, 34, who suffered spinal injuries while undergoing urology training, performs all these functions with the help of his wheelchair which the OM hasn’t specified making him disqualified for the post. 

A recipient of a scholarship from the Society of International Urology in 2022 for a functional and female urology fellowship from CES University Medellin in Colombia, Dr Jose said, ”I have got special training to perform urological surgeries using a standing wheelchair. Developed countries don’t have such functional requirements in jobs.”

JIPMER claims that the identification of posts, benchmark disabilities and functional requirements are in pursuance of the provisions made in the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.

Another wheelchair user, 32-year-old Nonita Gangwani, who has been working as a senior resident doctor in the physiology department of the University College of Medical Science (UCMS) Delhi for the past two-and-a-half years, will also get disqualified on similar grounds and many more senior doctors with disabilities have reportedly alleged the same.

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