The Madras High Court has come down heavily upon the trend of students securing admission in postgraduate medical courses in government colleges by readily signing bonds to serve in public hospitals for two years after their studies, but subsequently making an attempt to wriggle out of this obligation.
Justice S.M. Subramaniam said those who got educated at the expense of the poor could not seek exemption from serving the poor at government hospitals. Dismissing writ petitions filed by two doctors against their bond period, he said, “Such an attitude was opposed to public interest and unacceptable.”0
“The prime object of medical profession is to render service to humanity. Doctors cannot adopt a pick and choose attitude while treating patients... Denial of treatment to poor patients in government hospitals in spite of agreeing to the same, under the bond, goes against the ethos of medical ethics,” he observed.
The judge went on to state: “It is not as if the doctors are forced to treat patients for free throughout their career. The bond is such that it operates only for a particular period of time... . It is nothing but a service to humanity and to the poor sections of the society who are unable to get paid treatment.”
He recorded the submission of Government Advocate K. Tippu Sulthan that those who gain admission in government medical colleges pay a paltry sum towards fees and it was the State that spent crores of rupees, from taxpayers’ money, to get the medical students educated.
The law officer also said the government pays monthly stipend to every postgraduate medical student and therefore, they could not cite the services rendered by them during COVID-19 as a reason to seek exemption from serving in government hospitals after the completion of their studies.
It was further brought to the notice of the court that the government had also taken a considerate view of the representations made by many postgraduate students and reduced their bond period from two years to one year through a Government Order issued on October 27, 2023.
After recording the submissions, the judge said, it was not a case of the petitioners having been forced to sign the bonds. He said, the petitioners, being well-educated doctors, had signed the bonds, along with three sureties, in the full knowledge of what they were committing themselves to.
Having done so, the petitioners could not turn back and refuse to serve in government hospitals by citing the yeoman service rendered by the entire medical community during COVID-19. He said, the government, too had no justifiable reasons to reduce the bond period after the petitioners had executed them.
