AIIMS violates hiring norms for disabled people

The All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is a renowned group of public medical colleges in the country with centers across India.
Working for AIIMS is regarded as an honor by all medical professionals.

However, time and again the AIIMS recruitment process shows discrimination and bias against people with disabilities.

The issue has been raised several times by disability rights activist Dr Satendra Singh, Founder, Doctors with Disabilities: Agents of Change.

AIIMS Gorakhpur has recently released an advertisement for the recruitment of faculty posts (group ‘A’) in various departments on direct recruitment basis.

However, in what is a clear violation of the RPWD Act and the various norms set for recruitment of persons with disabilities, the advertisement claims to reserve one seat for Persons with Disabilities – OL (One leg only).

This means that the vacancy is open only for candidates with “one leg disability” and not others. This is a clear violation of the rights of people with disabilities.

A few months back AIIMS Raipur had also erred on similar lines and it had to amend the recruitment rules after Dr Singh raised voice and brought the issue into the limelight.

Dr Singh has written to the Health & Family Welfare Minister J P Nadda and Social Justice & Empowerment Minister T C Gehlot to look into the matter. Since this is happening often, the AIIMS management needs to look into the recruitment policy and make it standard across all the AIIMS in India.

I have suggested many times that doctors with disabilities should be part of Committee on Identification of posts so that these new AIIMS can prevent embarrassing themselves every time they send out advertisements. Different cases are pending in different courts by disabled doctors on the same matter and their inclusion in this committee will streamline this anomaly. Dr Satendra Singh, Disability rights activist

The postings should be open for candidates with all the 21 benchmark disabilities as per the RPWD Act 2016, and suitable candidates should be selected through fair process.
Dr Pankaj Prasad who is with Department of Community and Family Medicine, AIIMS, Bhopal feels that the process of recruitment should be analyzed as per the RPWD Act.

“This is unfortunate and the advertisement by AIIMS Gorakhpur should be recalled immediately. Disabled people are being treated unfairly by big medical institutes and this needs to change. PMR and Medicos should be included in the recruitment process to make it inclusive.” Dr Pankaj Prasad, AIIMS Bhopal

There are many medical professionals with disabilities who have faced discrimination during recruitment. NewzHook spoke to Dr Meetu Yadav who had applied for a posting with AIIMS Jodhpur.

The institute did not disclose the number of seats reserved for disabled people and also did not bother to inform about selection and rejection criteria. Dr Yadav feels that for a prestigious institute like AIIMS this type of treatment towards medical professionals with disabilities is uncalled for.

“I feel that the recruitment process should be transparent so that candidates with disabilities can understand why they are not being recruited.” Dr Meetu Yadav, Senior Resident at Lady Hardinge Medical College

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