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Reserved category medicos facing discrimination

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

`Being subjected to rude statements and bad behaviour on a day-to-day basis by their colleagues and senior doctors'

NEW DELHI: Murmurs of discontent and discrimination among medical students and doctors from the reserved category seem to have become louder with the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Medical Association now pointing out that despite several written and verbal complaints by their members against "selective discrimination in the medical colleges and hospitals no action has been taken against the wrongdoers".

While medical students at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) have complained of caste discrimination, now doctors from the reserved category at the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital (GTBH) too have written about "biased attitude towards reserved category junior residents".

"It is strange that in the Capital doctors from the reserved category are subjected to rude statements and bad behaviour on a day-to-day basis by their colleagues and senior doctors. In fact, doctors from the reserved category were even prevented from doing their duty during the anti-reservation strike by medical students. We have written to the Health Minister and the doctors who faced discrimination have also written to their respective Medical Superintendents about this problem. However, the Government is yet to set up committee to probe the matter," said SC/ST Medical Association vice-president Dr. P. K. Rathore.

A Medicos Forum For Equal Opportunities member said: "Students and doctors of the reserved category are now being forced to stay in isolated groups and are increasingly feeling unsafe in an environment where there is discrimination and a failure of the local administration and the Health Ministry to redress specific instances of caste discrimination."

The SC/ST Medical Association in its letter to the Union Health and Family Welfare Minister said: "It has been brought to our notice that some residents doctors and medical students who joined duty (during the anti-reservation strike by medical students and doctors) are being threatened by faculty member and administrations. We request you to take necessary action against the culprit and provide protection to residents who were not part of the anti-reservation strike."

"No action was taken in the case despite the fact that the LNJP Hospital Medical Superintendent, Dr. V. K. Ramteke, wrote to the Police Commissioner requesting him to look into the matter and take necessary steps so that the culprits were brought to books."

Also in response to the same problem at Maulana Azad Medical College, the Dean, Dr. A. K. Agrawal, had issued a circular to all heads of departments to deal with such cases sternly and take action accordingly. "What we want to highlight is the fact that discrimination happens even in the Capital's premier institutions where medical students and doctors from the reserved category are feeling ill at ease with the situation," added Dr. Rathore.

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