Patient care in all Government Medical College Hospitals in the State are likely to be affected from Friday as postgraduate medical students (junior residents) have decided to go ahead with their strike, boycotting all services, including emergency services, in protest against the government’s refusal to take any concrete measures to resolve the crisis in medical colleges.
The striking doctors said that they would boycott all emergency duties, other than COVID duty from Friday. They said that by threatening them the government had made it clear that it did not intend to resolve the issues faced by the doctors.
By Friday evening, 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.
Following discussions with the doctors, Health Minister Veena George had on Tuesday issued a press release that the PG doctors had decided to withdraw their strike, after they were given the assurance that non-academic junior residents (medical students who have finished house surgeoncy and are waiting for PG entrance) would be recruited within two days.
But the PG doctors had clarified then itself that they would resume their strike if the government did not follow through on these assurances and issued a GO recruiting non-academic junior residents.
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.
In a statement in support of the junior doctors, KGMCTA appealed to the public not to come to MCHs, unless it was an emergency, as the hospitals were acutely short staffed to deal with OP and IP care, ICUs and COVID duties.
