Young doctors at the Centre-run All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health (AIIH & PH) in Kolkata, who haven’t received their salaries for four months, have called off their strike for now following an oral assurance by its Director on Wednesday that they would be paid by the end of next week.
As many as 19 doctors — belonging to the First Year batch of post-graduate trainees (junior residents) at the 1932-founded institute — went on a strike in the beginning of last week protesting against the non-payment of salaries from the time they joined in July this year. AIIH & PH Director Dr. U.K. Chattopadhyay had on Tuesday issued a circular saying the strike was bringing disrepute to the institution and had asked course coordinators to give the names of students participating in the strike.
“This is to state that the new entrants are on agitations, sloganing (sic) and demonstrations of placards, festoons, posters, etc. for the last few days which has created unnecessary artificial demerits of this prestigious, premier institute of South East Asia and demoralised the high-heads of all faculties,” the AIIH&PH Director had said in the circular.
“I, being the head of the Institute, seek the favour of the concerned course coordinators to kindly let me know the names of the students who have participated in this endeavour and since when,” he wrote.
Post-graduate medical students on strike.
But on Wednesday, he gave an oral assurance to a representative of the students that they would be paid by the end of next week. The institute comes under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and there is no clarity yet on why the salaries of junior residents remain unpaid for four months. According to an institute official The Hindu spoke to, they were waiting for financial approval at the Ministry-level to come through.
According to First Year MD students, they aren’t the only ones to suffer and that even the salaries of their seniors are routinely delayed. They said they never refused to attend to patients during the COVID-19 pandemic in spite of not being provided PPE (personal protective equipment), but had run out of patience after not being paid for four months.
“We are calling off the strike as of now because of the assurance. We will wait until the end of next week. Already there is talk that we won’t be paid for the month of November because we have been on strike for 11 days now and therefore don’t have 80% attendance,” a First Year MD student told The Hindu , asking not to be named.
The student said that they still didn’t rule out disciplinary action being taken against them for going on a strike, unless the Director put out another circular saying no such action would be taken.
