Kerala - Kozhikode   

Doctors to boycott State programmes

KOZHIKODE: The Kerala branch of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) urges the government to fulfil the promises it has made to government doctors.

Talking to mediapersons here on Friday, IMA State president C.K. Chandrasekharan and State secretary R. Ramesh said the IMA had no option other than supporting the non-cooperation protest launched by the government doctors since October 1 in this situation.

“We register our protest as the government has not honoured the agreement arrived at in October 2006 with the Kerala Government Medical Officers Association with regard to pay revision and creation of the specialist cadre.”

The doctors had protested against the alleged bias towards them in the pay revision and demanded creation of administrative and speciality cadres.

The agreement includes re-establishment of the post-graduate quota and improvement of basic infrastructure in government hospitals.

“It had been agreed that the promise made to the doctors will be implemented from April 1. But the undertaking has remained only on paper till date. Under the circumstances we have no other option other than declaring support to the protest launched by the doctors, the majority of whom are IMA members,” Dr. Chandrasekharan said.

The IMA flayed the policy of paying a salary of Rs.15,000 and Rs.20,000 to doctors with less than five years’ experience and those with specialisation respectively who were employed on contract basis through the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) while only Rs.11,900 was paid to government doctors at the entry point.

The IMA said the government should increase the salary of doctors and improve their service conditions so that more persons would be attracted to the public health-care sector. The repercussions of neglecting the public health sector, the mainstay of people from the lower economic strata, will be grave as there will be a severe shortage of government doctors in future. A stage will come when there will be no senior doctors in the government hospitals but only junior doctors.

The IMA, they said, is not against compulsory rural service for the government doctors. However, they wondered whether the temporary measure would have the desired impact of uplifting the public health-care system in the State.

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