Condemning the State government’s order increasing the working hours of doctors at the Primary Health Centres (PHCs), the doctors affiliated to Tamil Nadu Government Doctors’ Association (TNGDA) staged a demonstration at the District Headquarters Hospital here on Monday.
At present, the working hours for PHC doctors is from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and as per the Government Order 225 dated July 25, 2022, the revisied timing is from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Doctors said that they were under tremendous stress due to workload and increasing the work time by an hour would burden them. They said that while 11 lakh government employees and teachers in the State worked only 37.5 hours a week, the doctors in PHCs had to work 42 hours a week, including call duty. “The G.O. increases our working hours to 48 hours a week “, they added.
They said that in 2009, TNGDA placed a request with the then Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi after which work hours were revised from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. “Increasing the working hours is strongly condemnable,” the protesting doctors said and added that the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, had recommended 40 hours duty a week for health staff. They pointed out at the difficulty in reaching early at the centres located in villages that lack proper bus facility or other mode of transportation. They wanted the G.O. to be withdrawn and warned of further protests.
