Around 110 house surgeons including 60 women owing allegiance to the Interns and Postgraduate Association of Tamil Nadu (IPAT) on Monday boycotted the day-to-day work at the Government Hospital here.
No surgeons took part in the In-Patient and Out-Patient duties in the hospital, impacting the normal functioning of the hospital that receives hundreds of patients daily. The agitators, including women, took part in the in-house demonstration to press their demands.
The strike was in response to the State-wide call given by the IPAT demanding increase in stipends for both UG and PG trainee doctors. They were seeking attention of the State government to the issues of their stipend.
Claiming that the stipend given to the house surgeons in the State was lowest in the country, they said that stipend for an intern got just Rs. 8,200. It was very low when compared with the other States.
It should be increased to Rs. 20,000 a month.
Similarly, the stipend for the postgraduate students should be increased from Rs. 17,500 to Rs. 43,000.
J.B. Sairam said the meagre stipend was insufficient to meet the expenditure of interns because of high rate of inflation. They had been attending work round-the-clock but they were not sufficiently paid. The problems faced by the interns should be studied by the government. It should come forward to increase the stipend immediately.
Stating that it was an indefinite protest, the interns would continue to abstain from work. However, it would follow the instructions from the State-level office-bearers of IPAT on continuation of the protest.
