The ongoing strike by junior residents or postgraduate medical students in government medical college hospitals (MCHs) in the State, who are staying away from all hospital duties and emergency services, except COVID-19 duty, looks set to precipitate a major crisis in the functioning of MCHs as more doctors’ organisations have announced their intention to join the strike from Monday.
Minister’s stance
However, even as the entire medical fraternity seemed to be supporting the striking doctors, Health Minister Veena George maintained that the government had done everything to resolve the issues raised by medicos.
With their seniors going on strike, house surgeons are left to manage emergency services in MCHs. The house surgeons’ association, in protest, announced the boycott of all duties, except emergency services and COVID-19 duty, for 24 hours from 8 a.m. on Monday as a token protest.
Two-hour strike
The Kerala Government Medical College Teachers’ Association (KGMCTA) pointed out that PG medicos were the main workforce in MCHs and that the government’s attempt to ignore their demands would aggravate the already fragile human resources situation in MCHs and precipitate a serious crisis. Its Thiruvananthapuram unit has announced a two-hour token strike on Monday.
In a statement, they warned that if the PG medicos’ strike was allowed to continue, doctors would be forced to restrict medical college services to just emergency care and elective surgeries could get postponed indefinitely.
PG medicos went on strike 12 days ago, as part of a nationwide protest against the delay in NEET-PG allotment 2021 and demanding that the State government intervene on the issue. Though the government issued orders allowing MCHs to appoint 373 non-academic junior residents in the hospitals to ease the burden of PG medicos, they said the number was inadequate to fulfil the requirements of tertiary care institutions, which were short of at least 1,000 PG doctors.
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