Cart Before The Horse

We have five lecturer’s posts vacant for months. They advertised the posts about three months ago. We were asked to go for conducting the interviews of aspiring candidates during vacation, with a promise that the appointment orders would be given the next day. All that rush was to satisfy the medical council who had threatened to remove the recognition of the institute for not fulfilling the requirements. Today it is two months since the interviews were conducted and still we have not got a single person appointed. They first claimed our hospital office had not informed them of all the vacancies. I produced proof that they had received our letters about all the vacancies. Then they spent a long time doing something best known to themselves. Then they said they had put the proposal for sanction to the standing committee. The committee was not standing at attention as the name suggested. The meeting was postponed a few times, by one week or so every time. Finally they passed it. Then the matter went to the corporation. Still there were no lecturers. So I finally went to our office and asked about the status of the appointment activity. It would happen some time the head clerk said, unwilling to specify any date. I asked her why permissions were not obtained from the standing committee and corporation before advertising the posts. ‘Permission was first obtained from the commissioner. After the selections were made, permissions were sought from the standing committee and the corporation.’ I was stunned. ‘I know you are not responsible for the procedure’ I said ‘but does it not sound weird? Suppose the standing committee or the corporation does not give permission for these appointments, all the money, effort and time of all personnel involved are wasted. It is like sending invitation cards, booking a hall and getting guests for a wedding while the the bride and groom have not even decided to marry each other.’ She was speechless. That is the way things are done around her, she seemed to say. A paradigm is waiting for a shift. In the meantime were are overworked because we are understaffed, and the patients are suffering because we are not supermen and superwomen and cannot compensate for the absence of five doctors for a number of months.