Doctors from Tamil Nadu Holds Protest And Asked The Government To Increase Stipend

On Monday, almost 300 doctors from Chennai's major government medical colleges gathered at Stanley Medical College Hospital to perform a 'black badge' protest in support of their stipend hike demand.

The monthly salary for postgraduate doctors who have been treating covid patients since the pandemic outbreak claims to have stayed stagnant for years.

According to the Tamil Nadu Resident Doctors' Association (TNRDA), the resident doctors get the amount of Rs 37,200 RS 47,000 as a monthly allowance from the government, which recently presented their appeal to Chief Minister MK Stalin, health Minister Ma Subramaniam, and other authorities.

Their Gujarati counterparts make twice as much as they are doing now. Other states, like Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, had statewide protests and work boycotts. As a result, these state governments were required to make payroll adjustments.

TNRDA's R Vignesh said that they do not want to disrupt any services or treatments provided to patients in any way. This is why they organized a protest in which only doctors who were off-duty or on vacation took part.

After the number of covid cases begins to decline, there will be a significant queue of non-covid cases and surgeries to be completed. As a result, PG doctors and Compulsory Rotatory Residential Interns (CRRIs) will resume working 18 hours every day. As a result, he added, the government should provide us with a reasonable rise in stipend as soon as possible.

TNRDA asked that the government should boost the allowance by 10% per year so that their juniors would not face the same problem a few years down the road.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu ministers still have not said no to their demand and have promised to create a proposal, but nothing official has been announced yet. A senior health official in response said that they were provided with a one-time incentive of Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 and their food, quarantine expenses at star hotels were taken care of by the government. Their current demand for the stipend is also under discussion, he said.