The Gandhi Hospital unit of the Telangana Government Doctors Association (TGDA) on Saturday held an impromptu protest during a meeting between hospital officials and Principal Secretary (Health, Medical and Family Welfare) Suresh Chanda. The senior doctors raised slogans dema-nding better infrastructure facilities and implementation of UGC pay scales.
The Principal Secretary was on a visit to the hospital to interact with heads of various medical wings and to inspect the demonstration of 25 CCTV cameras to be installed at the teaching hospital.
The association members, who spoke to the Principal Secretary, made it clear that before installing CCTVs and introducing fingerprint technology for attendance, the government should address their grievances.
They insisted that Dr. Chanda inspect a few vital health wings to get first-hand information.
“When he visited the mortuary area, only three of the 30 air conditioning boxes where the bodies are stored were functioning. There were only two lifts functioning out of the existing 18 lifts,” doctors said.
The UGC scales of pay also have not been fully implemented for more than five years. “We are losing anywhere between Rs.30,000 and Rs.40,000 every month because the government has not implemented UGC pay scales fully. The hospital infrastructure has become a decade old and needs upgrading on all fronts. While the government talks of increasing beds, it does not recruit doctors, nurses, paramedics and improve working conditions of doctors,” TGDA unit general secretary D. Ramesh complained.
They want the govt. to improve facilities at the hospital and fully implement UGC pay scales at the teaching hospital
