At a time when the health infrastructure is weighing down against the rising Omicron cases, resident doctors at routine clinics and big hospitals of Delhi like Safdarjung, Lady Hardinge, Lok Nayak and Guru Teg Bahadur, have decided to go on strike.
Why?
They demand NEET-PG counselling be conducted at the earliest. Doctors who have completed their MBBS degree and internship have to appear for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for postgraduate courses (NEET-PG) to study for a particular specialisation such as medicine or surgery. This test usually takes place in January, but in November last year the National Board of Examination that conducts the test postponed it until further notice in view of the Covid-19 situation.
The delays have also cost nearly 45,000 medical students one year of their education. They are still waiting to join the workforce. The protest started nearly a month ago with resident doctors – both, junior and senior – withdrawing first from the OPD services, then routine care of patients in the ward and planned surgeries, and finally from the emergency services.
However, while their exams have been postponed, they continue to be at work on low salaries. Added, the counselling and admission process for PG students who work as junior residents, could not be formalised in September. This owes to a clutch of cases pending in the Supreme Court regarding the newly introduced quota for the economically weaker sections.
The doctors have been demanding that the Supreme Court fast-track the hearing. They also want the Union health ministry to file a report on the chosen criteria of Rs 8 lakh annual income for eligibility of the quota.
It is the junior residents, along with those who have completed their PG course and are appointed as senior residents, who form the backbone of the services offered at big medical college-associated hospitals across the country. With those having completed their three years of PG training moving on to jobs as senior residents at the same or other hospitals, the lack of an incoming batch has resulted in one-third staff shortfall across such hospitals.
To make up for the shortfall, the existing doctors have been working between 100 to 120-hour weeks at the height of the pandemic. The doctors say that they are exhausted and hence are demanding that the counselling be conducted at the earliest, especially with another wave of Covid-19 looming large.
The emergency, as well as the routine clinics at big hospitals like Safdarjung, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, Lady Hardinge and associated hospitals, Lok Nayak, and Guru Teg Bahadur, are barely functioning. The doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences have been staying away from the strike so far, but after violence on Monday, they have decided to stop routine services on Tuesday. The emergency services at the hospital will remain open.
