Medical students of Government Medical College here, as part of a State-wide agitation against the government decision to introduce bonded service for medical students, have decided to swamp the Health Minister with protest letters.
On Thursday, all students and house surgeons deposited their individual protest letters in a huge box on the campus. Around 5,000 letters in all will be sent to the Health Minister, they said.
The campaign is expected to be taken up at other government medical colleges in the coming days.
The students at all government medical colleges across the State have been on a warpath ever since the government issued a GO dated February 16, making it compulsory for all medicos - MBBS, Postgraduate, and PG Superspecialty students - to do one year's bonded service each in government institutions after the completion of their course.
Till now, the medicos needed to do only one year's cumulative compulsory rural service (CRS) after the completion of the MBBS. The new GO would mean that after every higher medical course, the medicos would have to serve the government under bond for a year.
While the government pointed out that they needed the medicos, whose education has been highly subsidised, to serve the poor in public sector hospitals, the medicos argue that the government should fill the vacancies from the PSC list instead of opting for the easier route of ‘cheap bonded labour'.
They demanded that instead of making them do bonded service, the government should offer them permanent jobs by filling all vacancies in the public health sector from the PSC list.
