Tamil Nadu - Tirunelveli   

Unofficial cut from house surgeons’ stipend alleged

TIRUNELVELI: An “unofficial” cut of Rs.250 being effected in the monthly stipend of Compulsory Rotatory Residential Interns (house surgeons) by the Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital administration has triggered anxiety among the affected students.

The students complain that the amount is being deducted from the assistance of 110-odd house surgeons for the past several months in the guise of meeting the expenditure incurred in “maintenance of the quarters.”

However, upkeep of this edifice on the TVMCH premises with 20 rooms housing 40 house surgeons is far from satisfactory as the four toilets and bathrooms without door are in highly unhygienic condition.

Though this hospital, catering to the needs of poor patients from Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Kanayakumari districts, is located in the heart of the city blessed with the Tamiraparani, the house surgeons are depending upon other sources to quench their thirst since no permanent arrangement is in place to ensure adequate drinking water supply.

Whenever the motor fitted to the deep borewell breaks down, even washing and bathing becomes difficult and during this point, the post-graduate students’ hostel comes to the rescue of the affected.

“Our quarters, the worst shape is a testimony to the students’ complaints that no maintenance work had been carried out for the past several years to make it inhabitable. Hence, the excuse that the amount being deducted from our stipend is being spent for maintenance cannot be accepted,” said one of the house surgeons.

“Since the administration is neither prepared to give us proper reply nor carry out maintenance in the quarters, we’ve decided to get proper reply from the official concerned under the Right To Information Act. We don’t know what happens to the amount being deducted from the stipend. We’ll gather in front of the Dean’s Office very soon if adequate water supply is not restored in our quarters,” said general secretary of the house surgeons’ association, T.C. Raja Chakrapani adding that the amount is likely to be increased to Rs. 350 a month.

Asserting that the TVMCH had nothing to do with the deduction,” Dean, TVMCH, S. Vinayagam said the “maintenance charges” being cut from the stipend was being used only by the house surgeons’ association.

He said a massive drinking water scheme exclusively for TVMCH was being prepared and the work would start within three months from now. The Dean, while advocating that maintenance charges were being deducted from the stipend of every house surgeon across Tamil Nadu, stated that Rs. 500 from every Madras Medical College house surgeon’s remuneration was being deducted every month towards maintenance, enquiries with the MMC students revealed that it was untrue.

Health Secretary V.K. Subburaj assured that he would look into the matter immediately.

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