Services in hospitals run by the Health and Family Welfare Department in the State are likely to be hit from the last week of November as doctors have threatened to resign en masse on October 27 over wage disparity and irregular payment of salaries.
Even as the doctors announced their plans on Thursday, Health Department sources said that the department was ready to meet any emergency situation if the doctors’ actually resigned. Sources said the Government was contemplating seriously to accept the resignations and come out with alternative measures. “This is essential as the doctors have been blackmailing the Government repeatedly over the last two years,” the sources said.
Demands
T. A. Veerabhadraiah, President of Karnataka State Government Medical Officers' Association (KGMOA), said that doctors have been urging the government, for the past several years, to resolve their demands. “After submitting the resignations on October 27, we will work for a month. We will leave if the government fails to take any action by then. If they accept our resignations it is well and good,” he said.
There are about 4,500 medical officers as against the sanctioned post of 6,000 in the state. “Our demands are in the interest of the public as the shortage of doctors is hitting the functioning of hospitals,” he said.
Listing the demands, Dr. Veerabhadraiah said the government should fill up vacancies in the hospitals on the lines of Tamil Nadu where recruitment is taken up once in three months.
Pay parity with doctors in the Medical Education Department, timely payment of salaries, amendment to the transfer policy and retaining district hospitals with the Health and Family Welfare Department are some of the other demands, he said.
Health Minister U.T. Khader said the Government had held discussions with the Association in the past and had fulfilled most of their demands. On the alternative measures to be initiated, the Minister said: “Let them resign first. We are ready to face any situation.”
