The Kerala Medical Postgraduates Association (KMPGA) has called for a State-wide token strike in all government medical college hospitals on August 2 to protest against the authorities’ neglect of the situation of acute shortage of human resources in medical colleges.
In a statement here on Friday, the association said that more than half of their three-year postgraduate training had been spent on COVID care, to the exclusion of other clinical exposure, training and academics. Now, with an acute shortage of hands in hospital wards, all residents were overworked and exhausted.
Even though the situation had been brought to the notice of medical college principals, hospital superintendents, Director of Medical Education, and the Health Minister as early as six months ago, nothing was being done to resolve the situation, the KMPGA said.
The association would go on a token strike on August 2, when they will withdraw all non-COVID and non-emergency services for 12 hours, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The medicos threatened to go on indefinite strike if the situation was not resolved.
“The postgraduate residents have been on the front line of COVID fight, sacrificing half of their course period, which should have been spent on acquiring the skill sets for their chosen specialities. Till now, we have gone about working in COVID wards without any complaints because we had the support of house surgeons and fellow residents. But with the current batch of house surgeons leaving and one batch of residents preparing for their examinations, we have an acute shortage of staff to work in wards,” KMPGA secretary R. Naveen said.
The association demanded that the COVID patient load be shared by other peripheral institutions. It demanded that additional human resources be sought with the help of National Health Mission and increase the non-academic senior resident posts.
The medicos are also demanding incentives/risk allowances for resident doctors and reinstatement of the annual 4% hike in stipend.
They wanted the 2016 MBBS final year batch who completed their practical examinations to be posted as house surgeons with immediate effect.
