By PTI
AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat government on Tuesday tried to mollify resident doctors on strike for the last six days primarily over bond conditions by offering concessions such as job posting near their native places as well as the setting up of a grievance redressal committee.
The 2000-odd doctors, from government-run medical colleges in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar, struck work on August 4.
After a meeting with top officials on Tuesday, Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, who also holds the health portfolio, said, “I have asked the deans to convey to the agitating doctors to end their strike without any condition and join their respective duties as allotted by the government. If someone feels his place of duty is very far from his hometown, we will definitely try to transfer them to a nearer place.”
“We will also form a committee to listen to the demands and issues faced by the doctors. The committee would then make a representation before me. If we find merit, we will show a big heart and try to give relief and concessions as demanded. But the doctors need to first end their strike without any conditions,” Patel asserted.
Patel asked intern MBBS doctors, who have joined the agitating resident doctors, to refrain from doing so for the sake of their “better career and future”.
Patel further said the issue was being given “unnecessary hype” as it affects only 250 post graduate students, mostly from Ahmedabad’s BJ Medical College, adding that other interns had joined the stir without any reason.
The Deputy CM, who had earlier threatened to invoke the Epidemic Diseases Act to get the agitating doctors to resume work, reiterated the strike was illegal but added that it had not affected hospital work across the state.
Medical students in Gujarat’s government colleges have to sign a bond promising to serve in rural areas for a year after completing studies, and it can be broken by paying Rs 40 lakh.
In April this year, amid a rise in COVID-19 cases, the Gujarat government announced that a day of coronavirus duty would be considered equivalent to two days of bond duty, which effectively meant six months of duty in COVID-19 wards would have completed the one-year bond.
However, as per a statement of the Junior Doctors’ Association, the state government, in July when cases started falling, reverted to the old bond conditions.
The agitating doctors have been demanding that the “1:2 day formula” be restored as well as salaries be given as per the 7th Pay Commission instead of Rs 80,000 per month offered now.
They also want the government to post them in their “mother institutes” during the bond period instead of remote rural areas.