With the strike by Postgraduate medical students (junior residents) threatening to derail the functioning of all Government Medical College Hospitals, the Government issued a order late night on Thursday, giving permission to the principals to appoint non-academic junior residents in all MCHs.
The lack of a formal GO acceding to this main demand by PG doctors, that the acute human resources shortage be resolved, was one of the reasons why the junior residents had refused to withdraw from the strike.
According to the GO, a total of 373 non academic junior residents would be appointed of which Thiriuvananthapuram will get 50, Kozhikode and Thrissur 72 each, Kottayam 75, Alappuzha 61, Ernakulam seven and Kannur 36.
The persons so appointed would be paid a salary of ₹45,000, and the expense for the same would be met under the head, Stipend and Scholarship of PG doctors, the GO says.
Earlier, the postgraduate medical students have decided to go ahead with their strike, boycotting all services, including emergency services, from Friday in protest against the government’s refusal to take any concrete measures to resolve the crisis in medical colleges.
The striking doctors had threatened to boycott all emergency duties, other than COVID duty from Friday.
Principals of Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, Thrissur and Ernakulam medical colleges issued orders expelling the striking junior doctors from PG hostels.
Nationwide strike
Junior residents in all MCHs have been on strike since the past nine days, as part of the nationwide strike to protest against the inordinate and indeterminate delay in NEET-PG 2021 allotment, which had put the entire burden of patient care activities on them.
Normally, the PG allotments should have been over by May. The junior residents said that in the absence of their junior batch to share hospital duties, they were on continuous 48 and 96 hour shifts for the past several months, leaving them over worked and stressed. This was affecting the quality of patient care also.
Minister’s warning
On Thursday, Ms. George issued a warning to PG doctors that the issues of NEET PG allotment was not something that the State could resolve and that the doctors’ strike, which was affecting the functioning of medical colleges hospitals, would be dealt with strictly.
She threatened that action would be taken against them under the Epidemics (Prevention and Control ) Act.
Meanwhile, Kerala Government Medical College Teachers’ Association said that the MCHs were already facing a huge human resources shortage as a chunk of the faculty have been shifted “on working arrangement” to the new Medical Colleges at Konni, Idukki and Paripally, violating all transfer norms, in anticipation of the upcoming inspection of new medical colleges by the National Medical Commission.
