Around 260 Compulsory Rotatory Resident Interns (CRRI or house surgeons), super speciality and non-service postgraduate students of the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) abstained from work on Thursday.
The strike was in response to a state-wide call given by the Interns and Postgraduates Association of Tamil Nadu (IPAT). They were seeking to draw the attention of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa to the issue of their stipends, which they said were among the lowest in the country.
They were demanding the implementation of a Government Order that increased the stipends by 10 per cent every year.
The house surgeons said that while the medical colleges under the Central Government and Delhi State Government gave stipends of nearly Rs. 71,000 a month for its postgraduate students, the State Government gave only between Rs. 17,000 and Rs. 19,000 depending on the year. They said that postgraduates, most of whom were married, found it difficult to manage with this stipend.
Further, the house surgeons received Rs. 8,200, of which nearly Rs. 5,000 went towards the monthly mess bill.They demanded that the stipend for postgraduates students be increased to a range between Rs. 41,000 to Rs. 43,000 and for house surgeons, to Rs. 20,000. For super speciality postgraduates, they demanded an increase to a range between Rs. 51,000 to Rs. 53,000 from the current pay of Rs. 21,000 to Rs. 23,000.They added that inKerala the stipend was Rs. 15,000 for house surgeons, and for postgraduates, it was between Rs. 33,000 to Rs. 35,000.While Health Minister C. Vijaya Baskar held talks with student leaders from all Government medical colleges recently, he was unwilling to give any assurance.
They said that they were working almost round the clock without taking leave on Sundays or public holidays but were not receiving adequate stipend. The CRRIs said that they were contemplating going on indefinite strike if their demands were not met.
