Riled by NEET-PG delay, resident doctors continue stir

Sixteen to 18 hours of work a day with no weekly off or leave. In addition to the heavy work pressure and stress, the quality of academics has been compromised due to their heavy regular hospital duty commitments. This has been the life of the resident doctors in India for a while.

Their hardships that began with COVID show no signs of abating despite COVID emergencies taking a back seat for the last couple of months. As the admission process for the new batch of PGs continue to be delayed, the existing batch of junior and senior residents are forced to work overtime due to an acute scarcity of doctors.

The resident doctors in India have been on strike since November 27. According to the resident doctors who are on strike, the Union government has shown no gesture of support as yet. The resident doctors in Delhi who called off the strike in the backdrop of the untimely demise of the Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat on December 9 are resuming it again on December 16.

The PG doctors in Kerala are also on strike with an additional demand of 4 per cent hike in the stipend which was announced a couple of years ago. On the other hand, the resident doctors in other states such as Karnataka, Maharashtra and Rajastan have called off the strike followed by the assurances given by their respective state governments.

The delay in the allotment of a fresh batch of PG doctors has been the major reason for  resident doctors to go on strike. Though the NEET-PG results were announced in September, the counselling has been held up due to disputes over the reservation for the Economically Weaker Section (EWS).

Also read: Doctors lash out at govt for roping in medical students for COVID duty

The Supreme Court is hearing petitions challenging EWS reservation in the PG allotment. As the Supreme Court imposed a stay, the entire PG allotment process has come to a halt. “We started the strike only by withdrawing from OPD (Out Patient Department) services but later we were pushed to boycott emergency services too,” pointed out Sree Parvathy, a junior resident at VMMC Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi.

Parvathy told The Federal that the resident doctors are burdened with heavy workload due to the absence of the fresh batch of PGs. If the allotment would have happened, around 35,000 junior resident doctors would have joined, said Parvathy, adding that the existing two batches of resident doctors are forced to fill this huge gap by extending their duty hours to 16 to 18 hours a day without a break.

“There were several attempts for negotiation. Lot of verbal assurances were given, but there has been no breakthrough,” said Parvathy. “Regarding duty hours, the doctors in general medicine, surgery and orthopaedic speciality are forced to work for more than 48 to 72 hours in a single stretch with no break,” pointed out Hirash Mohammed, the State Executive Committee member of the Resident Doctors Association in Kerala.

In a press release issued on December 12, FORDA (Federation of Resident Doctors Association of India) announced that the strike that was called off on December 9 would be resumed on December 16, unless the government comes up with a solution. FORDA has warned that they will withdraw from all services, including emergency services if the Ministry of Health fails to address their issues.

This organisations of resident doctors demanded that the government should either take action to expedite the court proceedings or begin the PG admission process at the earliest. “The NEET-PG allotment was delayed due to the pandemic. The NEET-PG that is usually conducted in January was put off to September due to the pandemic situation. It got further delayed when the issue of the EWS reservation was raised in the court,” Hirash Mohammed told The Federal.

The demands raised by resident doctors across states are not the same. The PG doctors in Kerala have raised the additional demand of pay hike as well. “An annual 4 per cent hike for junior resident doctors for Kerala was approved and sanctioned two years back. The implementation got delayed due to the pandemic. Now we need to get our rightful pay,” said the office bearers of Kerala Medical Post Graduate Association.

Also read: NEET-PG delay: Doctors to strike tomorrow, boycott OPD

The functioning of medical colleges in Kerala got further disrupted and plunged into a deeper crisis as the house surgeons too announced a 24 hours strike in support of the resident doctors. The surgeries scheduled for today (December 13) have been postponed. The House Surgeons Association told the media that all except COVID and causality service would be boycotted.

The PG doctors in Karnataka had put forth a similar demand. The Karnataka government however took a favourable stand and agreed to pay the COVID risk allowance and stipend to PG students and interns. The resident doctors in Maharashtra also lifted the stir followed by a discussion with the Health Minister of the state.

In an attempt to pacify the junior doctors, the Kerala government issued an order approving the temporary appointments of junior doctors (non-academic) on December 9. The order stipulated for the temporary appointment of 373 doctors. However, the resident doctors of Kerala are not happy with this move.

“Compared to the requirement, this number is very insufficient as there is still a void of around 1,000 doctors,” pointed out Hirash Mohammed. The resident doctors in Delhi do not approve the idea of appointing doctors to fill the vacuum of medical PG students. “It will not help us academically. We will only be able to focus on academics if a new batch of junior residents join with specific tasks,” said Sree Parvathy.

Meanwhile, the Kerala Medical Post-Graduate Association submitted a representation to the Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan. “The residents of the state are already overworked and burnt out as we are currently running with only two batches in place of the usual three. Medical colleges, which are supposed to be centres of academic excellence, have not carried out any academic activities at all for the past one and half years. A junior resident has only three years to acquire the necessary clinical and academic training that they rightfully deserve. In the past one and half years, the so-called ‘specialists-in-training’ have done nothing but back- to-back COVID duties. If we continue in the present status, thousands of future specialists will be ill-equipped in their respective fields”, stated the representation.