Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Doctors adamant; strike continues

Thiruvananthapuram: The government might be talking tough but doctors in the Health Service do not seem to be impressed as they continued to stay away from public health activities and official meetings for the eleventh consecutive day on Thursday as part of their non-cooperation strike.

They boycotted a meeting convened by a legislative committee in Kottayam on Thursday, which was to have discussed the proposals for infrastructure developments in government hospitals in five districts. Apart from the District Medical Officers from Alappuzha, Pathanamthitta, Idukki, Kottayam and Ernakulam, none of the 50-odd doctors, including the superintendents of the district and taluk hospitals in these districts, took part in the meeting. The MLAs from these districts attended the meeting.

Representatives of the Kerala Government Medical Officers’ Association said the doctors were firm on their stance that they would not go back on their demands despite the government ‘threatening appropriate action’ against the striking doctors.

“Government doctors have been suffering for the last 12 to 15 years and successive governments have only been paying lip service to our demands. The government now says that it requires more time to consider the decisions of the high-level committee that had been set up to study the implementation of the administrative and specialty cadre as it involves serious financial implications,” a KGMOA spokesperson said.

They pointed out that none from the Finance Department had taken part in any of the meetings of the committee, even though a representative of the department was supposed to be one of the members. The said the committee met six times to discuss the process of implementation of cadres and to fix pay scales.

When the Finance Department stayed away from these crucial meetings which discussed the pay hike for doctors, there is no sense in the government’s claim that it needed more time to study its financial implications, they said.

They alleged that the Finance Department had deliberately stayed away from the committee meetings for the government to buy more time and delay the implementation of the committee’s report.

Staff Report in Kozhikode adds: The district branch of the Kerala Government Medical Officers Association (KGMOA) has said that the doctors will go on a fast on November 1 if their demands are not met by the government.

District president of the KGMOA Dr. M. Muraleedharan asked why doctors should wait so long after the Health Minister extended deadlines to meet their demands. The Minister first said that the issue would be addressed by April 1, it was extended to June 1 and to July 15 and to August 30 and to September 27.

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