Angered by the State government’s failure to fulfill their long pending demands of pay revision, perks, promotions and COVID-19 compensation among other things, medicos owing allegiance to the Legal Coordination Committee for TN Service Doctors took to the streets here on Wednesday.
Madurai MP Su Venkatesan supported the demonstration to press for their 17-point charter of demands.
Syed Thahir, Senior Assistant Professor at Institute of Anaesthesiology & Critical Care, Government Rajaji Hospital, told The Hindu that despite promises and assurances, both the previous and the present regime had failed to provide monetary relief to doctors who worked non-stop in all kinds of emergency situations.
Highlighting the major grievances, he said compensation of ₹one crore to eight government doctors who succumbed to COVID-19 remained a lip service. Some doctors in the private sector, who died during the two waves of coronavirus infection, received the Chief Minister's solatium of ₹25 lakh, but families of those in the government sector were still left out. The bonus payment of ₹30,000 to all COVID-19 warriors was also not received by any.
Another member of the committee rued that innumerable meetings with department officials had yielded no result. Instead, some cases were arbitrarily cleared for partial payments. A case in point pertained to the former head of the legal committee, Lakshmi Narsimhan, who passed away early last year, and his family was denied pension benefits whereas those who died after him received their settlements. The committee was also seeking ₹ one crore compensation for him citing there should be no distinction between COVID and non-COVID deaths.
According to Dr. Thahir, GO 354 to rectify pay anomalies promulgated by the DMK government in 2009, was pending both a review and implementation. “Now that the same party is back in power, we hope the goverment will not test our patience any more,” he said.
Restoring DA arrears from January last, filling up vacancies and putting a stop to arbitrary and rampant transfers and promotions and thereby creating disparity in seniority were among their other demands besides some department-specific ill-functioning.