The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Medical college teachers to go on strike from today

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 02, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Medical college teachers to go on strike from today

Staff Reporter

Say no government decision yet on pay revision

VIP duties, admissions to
pay-wards to be hit
Seek pay scale on a par with Central scale for doctors

Thiruvananthapuram: Teaching faculty members in government medical colleges in the State are going on an indefinite agitation from Thursday demanding revision in pay scales.

The Kerala Government Medical College Teachers’ Association (KGMCTA) said that pay revision had not been implemented in the Medical Education service for the past 13 years. Doctors had been forced to go on an agitation as the government had not kept its promise of taking a final decision on pay revision before June 30, association State president A. Sarathkumar said.

Initially, the medical college teachers will stay away from VIP duties and stop pay-ward admissions from Thursday. From July 6, they propose to stay away from all teaching assignments and attending medical boards.

Association sources indicated that the government had called the organisation for talks on pay revision on Thursday. However, the association would not cooperate with the government if the nursing and other paramedical divisions were invited to take part in the discussion, they said.

The association, in a statement here, said the delay in implementing pay revision had adversely affected the Medical Education sector, with nearly 25 per cent of the posts in the service lying vacant. The response to the Public Service Commission advertisements for filling the vacancies had been very poor as the pay and service conditions in the sector held no attraction for young doctors. Most talented young doctors were joining private sector health care institutions which offered better pay and career opportunities, it said.

Instead of taking steps to fill the vacancies, the government enacted a farce before the Medical Council of India (MCI) every year. At the time of the MCI inspection, doctors were transferred en masse from one medical college to the other on a temporary basis to make up for the shortage of staff. The association had in April this year boycotted the MCI inspections at Alappuzha, Thrissur and Kottayam medical colleges. However, on the government’s promise that the pay revision woes would be settled soon, the doctors had cooperated with the MCI’s re-inspection in June.

The association said the minimum qualification for entry cadre in the medical colleges was postgraduation and a doctor, in the age group of 26 to 30 years and after nearly 13 years of study, joining the Medical Education service was paid a basic salary of Rs.10,000. It said that even postgraduate students were getting more money as stipend than the medical college teachers at the entry level.

The Ekbal Committee, which had suggested measures to improve the performance of all government medical colleges, had suggested different pay scales for doctors from other categories such as nursing and pharmacy science, it said.

The association demanded that the pay scale of medical college teachers be fixed on a par with the Central pay scales for doctors at the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala