Some 3,100 junior doctors and senior resident doctors would boycott COVID and non-COVID elective duties at Telangana government teaching and allied hospitals from 9 a.m. of Wednesday as their demands were not addressed, including State government’s ex-gratia for health care workers (HCWs) who lost life in line of duty.
Representatives of Telangana Junior Doctors Association (TJUDA), and Telangana Senior Resident Doctors Association (TSRDA) announced the decision to media on Tuesday.
The medical services which do not need emergency attention are called as elective duties such as Out-Patient services, treatment for closed fractures. They would continue to attend COVID ICU and critical care duties, and non-COVID emergencies.
However, the association members have threatened to boycott COVID ICU duties and non-COVID emergencies from May 28 if their demands are not considered.
Beds for kin
Other demands of the associations include implementation of hike in stipends from January-2020 instead of January 2021, 10% incentive for HCWs, allotment of bed and free treatment for HCWs and their families at Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS). The senior resident doctors have asked for 15% hike in honorarium.
From more than a week, representatives of both the associations have announced their intention to boycott duties if the demands are not met.
Family members of some of the HCWs who died in the first wave of the pandemic were issued ₹ 50 lakh ex-gratia issued by Central government. It was learnt that applications for this were filed for families of HCWs from State who died in the second wave. The associations members have demanded ex-gratia as announced by the State government.
According to TJUDA president V. Naveen, there are around 2000 House Surgeons (MBBS interns) and Post Graduates. They who come under the umbrella term ‘Junior Doctors’. There are around 1100 Senior Resident doctors (one year work after PG) working in government COVID hospitals, TSRDA president M Naresh added.
Put together, over 3100 junior doctors and senior resident doctors would boycott the elective duties.
Core for duties
The junior doctors and senior resident doctors are part of core teams who attend COVID patients at government hospitals. And the latter are crucial at a few of the COVID hospitals such as District Hospital in King Koti, and Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences (TIMS), Gachibowli.
State’s Director of Medical Education K. Ramesh Reddy has directed superintendents, directors, principals of teaching and allied hospitals to make necessary arrangements in the view of boycott of duties by the junior doctors at teaching hospitals.
The in-charges of the hospitals have prepared new duty charts including faculty members, Civil Assistant Surgeons, doctors on deputation.
The DME has further instructed that leaves will not be sanctioned to faculty, and asked officials to monitor attendance of the junior doctors closely.
