email embarrassment for Health Department

Karam Prakash

Tribune News Service

Patiala, January 22

The district Health Department has created an embarrassing situation for itself after endorsing a protest against the state government. 

It has been learned that the official email-ID of the district Health Department was being used to provide information about a protest against the state government.

In fact, the information about the statewide protest by employees of the National Health Mission working under the Health Department against the state government on Sunday was propagated through the department’s official email-ID. 

After the goof-up, the Health Department was facing flak from many quarters. According to sources in the Health Department, it was not the first incident where the official email-id was being misused by health officials for their personal work.

Meanwhile, the official spokesperson for the district Health Department, Krishan Kumar Chawla, said, “The person, Amarjeet Singh, who uses the official email-id for the official communique is the president of the National Health Mission Employees’ Union Punjab. Therefore, he used the official email-id to spread the information about the protest.”

Interestingly, the information about the protest against the state government was also shared with different media groups a day before the protest. 

Civil Surgeon Dr Manjit said, “I am not aware of the incident as I am on leave on Tuesday. But, taking cognisance of the incident, I have immediately asked my personal assistant to issue a show-cause notice to the person concerned.” The Civil Surgeon assured that strict action would be taken against the erring official after the inquiry.