The Hindu : Front Page : Doctors climb down on their demands

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Monday, Dec 03, 2007
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Doctors climb down on their demands

Special Correspondent

P.K. Sreemathy hopes doctors will call off stir.

KOCHI: Government doctors who have been on strike for over two months made a climbdown on Sunday by offering to end the agitation if the government agreed to turn the special allowances it has announced into special pay. The offer was made at a leadership meeting of the Kerala Government Medical Officers’ Association (KGMOA) here on Sunday. The meeting, attended by 11 senior functionaries of the KGMOA, comes in the wake of the concern expressed by the High Court over deteriorating conditions in hospitals.

The offer opens the way for both sides to come closer to resolving the 62-day agitation, which has worsened patient care at government hospitals that are the last resort of the poor. The agitation has brought a sense of weariness to the striking doctors. Behind-the-scenes negotiations, with the help of mediators, have been going on.

According to a KGMOA source, the leaders wanted the special allowances the government had recently agreed to pay to the doctors to pacify them be turned into special pay. This way, the leaders felt, the allowances could be protected during the next Pay Commission award. Unlike the allowances which could be scrapped anytime, special pay was of a permanent nature. The doctors said they only needed the same amount of benefits to be made special pay.

The leaders’ meeting made three options: one, rectify the anomalies in the current Pay Commission report; two, implement the Viswas Mehta Committee report; and, three, make the special allowances into special pay so that it could remain a permanent fixture Obviously, the leaders knew pretty well that the first two options were out of question as the government had said a firm no to these.

Call off stir: Minister

Staff Reporter adds from Thiruvananthapuram: Health Minister P.K. Sreemathy said the government was hopeful that the doctors would call off their agitation and come forward for talks in view of the difficulties being faced by the public.

In a statement here on Sunday, the Minister said the government would inform the High Court that it would not permit any lapses in the services to be provided to patients.

She said there was a demand to include the doctors working in cities after long years of rural service in the package announced by the government.

The KGMOA leaders had been informed that if they submitted clear proposals as per the norms in this regard, the government would give due consideration.

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