Postgraduate medical students or junior residents in Government Medical Colleges in the State, who were on an indefinite strike boycotting all hospital services, including emergency services (except COVID duty) for the past five days, toned down their agitation on Thursday by rejoining emergency services.
However, they continued to stay away from other patient care services.
Though detailed discussions had taken place on Wednesday between the striking medicos and a team of Health department officials led by Health Minister Veena George, the talks remained inconclusive, following which the medicos had decided to continue.
KMPGA had said that though the discussions were very productive and they could air all their grievances, no decision could be arrived at on issues such as appointment of more resident doctors or stipend hike, which involved concurrence from the Finance department.
No talks
Talks were slated to continue on Thursday with the Additional Chief Secretary(Health), Asha Thomas, on all issues, including the calculation of stipend hike. Though representatives of Kerala Medical Postgraduates’ Association had been given an appointment with Dr. Thomas, discussions did not take place on Thursday.
Kerala Medical Postgraduates’ Association (KMPGA) State president M. Ajithra later said that one of the Secretariat employees had misbehaved with her while she was waiting to meet Dr. Thomas at the Secretariat. She has since filed a police complaint.
Dr. Ajithra said that even though the PG medicos continued to be on strike, they had decided to take up emergency duties so as not to put the public to distress. She said that KMPGA was hopeful of resuming discussions with the ACS (Health) soon.
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