The Kerala Government Medical Officers’ Association (KGMOA) has declared that government doctors will stay away from all additional duties from Thursday, in protest against the government’s apparent lack of concern about the plight of health-care workers who are overworked and fatigued, fighting on the front lines for the past nine months.
The KGMOA has, however, made it clear that while declaring non-cooperation, COVID-19 care and disease containment activities will not be disrupted.
In a statement issued here, the KGMOA said that apart from ignoring the KGMOA’s repeated demand for deploying additional human resources in COVID-19 care activities, the government’s decision to take away the leave given to health-care workers after continuous COVID-19 duty was something that defied all principles of fairness. This was totally unacceptable, the KGMOA said here.
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‘Overburdened’
The statement said that medical officers in primary health centres were working round-the-clock. The brunt of the government’s decision not to deploy additional human resources was being borne by these doctors, many of whom had been contracting the disease.
The KGMOA has demanded that the government deploy additional human resource and that the leave after COVID-19 duty be restored immediately.
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They also demanded that block-level call centres be set up by including doctors from the private sector to provide care to those in home care.
The government has been asked to set aside salary deferment and to provide risk allowance to health-care workers.