Around 200 Short Service Commission (SSC) officers with the Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS), due for retirement over the next seven months, will get an extension till December 31 because of the COVID-19 pandemic situation.
Lt Gen (Dr) Madhuri Kanitkar, who is part of the medical team under the Chief of Defence Staff, said they will be deployed for the Covid-19 management programme initiated by the armed forces.
“Short Service Commission officers of the AFMS who are retiring in the next seven months will be given a unilateral extension. So, we have around 200 such medical officers, who were to retire, we will continue to have their services. So, we are holding back these medical officers who would have otherwise left us,” Lt Gen Kanitkar, the Deputy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (Medical) under the Chief of Defence Staff, told PTI.
“I think we need to ramp up basic primary health infrastructure. In this kind of pandemic, even countries with the best of the infrastructure collapsed. If we look that way, we have performed much better during the first wave of the pandemic,” she added.
Among the number of services launched by the armed forces include starting a website ‘SeHAT’ (Services eHealth Assistance and Teleconsultation) to assist to the families of armed forces as well as ex-service personnel.
In addition, those retired from AFMS have been advised to help in their respective localities and the local army commanders can be their facilitators.
