4000 resident doctors in Maharshtra threaten strike from Thursday

MUMBAI: Over 4000 resident doctors from the public medical colleges across Maharashtra have threatened to go on an indefinite strike from July 2, alleging state’s indifference to their demands of better pay, security and work hours. Medical services are usually badly hit during such strikes as junior doctors practically run the show in public hospitals.
The Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) announced on Tuesday that doctors from 14 state-run and three BMC-run colleges will not report to work from 8am on Thursday.“The strike will continue till the government meets our demands or assures us in writing that they will be met,” said Dr Sagar Mundada, president of central MARD. The association that had decided to go on a strike early in June had postponed it after the intervention of education minister Vinod Tawde.
MARD had presented the state with a charter of ten demands. Primarily, the association wants a two months’ paid leave for doctors undergoing treatment for tuberculosis without their course duration being increased. They have also demanded two months’ paid maternity leave, regular work hours not exceeding eight hours, better security with CCTV cameras and a time-bound raise in their stipends as promised by the state in 2011.
Representatives of the doctors’ association had met Tawde on June 12 during which, they claim, the minister had “positively assured” them of looking into their demands. “It however took us more than ten days and daily rounds of Mantralaya to just get the minutes of the meeting. We were surprised to see that six of our demands were missing from the document,” Mundada said. Thereafter, MARD complained that Tawde became “incommunicado”.
They claimed that in the past three years about 42 doctors, including 15 in Sion, 11 from KEM, nine from BYL Nair and seven from JJ hospitals contracted TB. “At least 40% are still undergoing treatment while 20% have the drug resistant form of TB. Yet, when doctors want to go on leave during the intensive treatment period, they have to lose stipend and prolong course period by six months,” said Dr Mandar Baviskar, general secretary, MARD. The doctors also complained that some work for more than 80 to 100 hours in a week when WHO specifies that doctors cannot be assigned more than 12 hours work at ta stretch.
The Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) officials said that they will speak to the doctors and try to resolve the matter.