Tamil Nadu house surgeons to review situation

The surgical interns had protested the overload of work, especially of routine tasks such as administering injections

Two months of protests and several interventions later, house surgeons in government hospitals in the State may be on their way to fruitful internships.

The surgical interns had protested the overload of work, especially of routine tasks of nurses and paramedical staff, including administering injections in general wards.

Such work left them with little time to practice medicine and improve surgical skills, they said.

A general body meeting of the Tamil Nadu Medical Colleges Interns Association will meet on Monday to look into the situation prevailing in institutions across the State.

“The situation is changing in a number of institutions including Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (GGH) and Government Stanley Medical College Hospital, apart from hospitals in Coimbatore, Vellore and Tiruchi. But there has been no headway in several other hospitals such as Kilpauk Medical College, Madras Medical College’s (MMC) Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Egmore, and Government Kasturba Gandhi Hospital for Women and Children, Triplicane. Here, the house surgeons continue to administer injections every day,” said J. Praveen, secretary of the association.

Following a series of protests, the health secretary wrote to the deans of medical colleges asking them to follow the guidelines of internship specified by the Medical Council of India and the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University.

Following this, MMC and GGH went a step forward and appointed contract nurses, while Stanley Medical College took internal measures and issued a circular to ensure staff nurses administered injections in general wards.

The house surgeons have now taken to social networking by creating a Facebook page — Slave CRRI — and have been posting updates on the issue.

“We will decide on the future course of action to be taken in colleges where no measures have been put in place to ease the situation. At MMC, 30 contract nurses have joined work and are giving injections, while recruitment is on for more. We will, however, continue to administer injections in emergency wards and admission wards,” said Mr. Praveen.

The meeting will also discuss their other demands including introduction of a 12-hour shift system instead of the weekly 36-hour duty, and weekly off, he said.