Haryana Resident doctors to now get 10-day yearly leave
Rohtak: Bringing relief to resident doctors, the medical institutes in Haryana, including Pt. B.D.Sharma Institute of Medical Sciences, Rohtak, and Maharaja Agrasen Medical College, Agroha, have decided to provide a 10-day yearly leave to the medicos who work under the duty roster for all 7 days a week, without any leave.
The resident doctors will be given this 10-day leave as compensation for the residents undergoing work on Sundays or holidays. Issuing an order in this regard on 25.06.2025, the Director of Pt. B.D.Sharma PGIMS mentioned "Competent Authorities have approved the Respective HOD's/Unit Heads to decide PG students (MD/MS) 10 days leave in one slot in lieu of duty performed on Sundays/Holidays keeping in view the workload & requirement of the Department/ Unit."
A similar order was issued by Maharaja Agrasen Medical College, Agroha as well. The Director of the institute mentioned in the order dated 08.07.2025, "As per Pt. BD Sharma, UHS, Rohtak, endst. No. AC/PG/2025/6382-6409 dated 25.06.2025), 10 days leave per year is for PG students (MD/MS) of all departments (copy enclosed). (Pre Clinical, Para Clinical & Clinical)."
Already, the General Surgery department at Maharaja Agrasen Medical College has released a 5-day family vacation schedule for PG batch 2023 and 2024, and a copy of the schedule is with the Medical Dialogues team.
These orders have been issued by the medical institutes in Haryana after the State branch of United Doctors Front (UDF) raised this issue and highlighted the concerns of resident doctors to various authorities.
Under the leadership of Dr. Amit Vyas, UDF Haryana President, this issue was prominently raised. The organization held meetings with BJP State President Mohan Lal Badoli, former Health Minister Dr. Kamal Gupta, and Hisar MLA Savitri Devi Jindal and representations were also sent to them on behalf of UDF Haryana.
Consequently, these authorities responded positively to the matter and as a result, this leave policy is now being implemented across the medical colleges in Haryana.
Issuing a release in this regard on July 9, the association mentioned, "The United Doctors Front (UDF) has strongly advocated for the rightful provision of weekly and casual leaves to resident doctors across the country. In this context, UDF has appreciated the order issued on February 5 by Pt. B.D. Sharma University of Health Sciences, Rohtak, which has now been taken up for implementation at the ground level by various medical colleges in Haryana. As per the order, all resident doctors will be entitled to 52 weekly offs and 20 casual leaves annually."
"The order also clearly mentions that residents will be required to serve on 10 Sundays per year, for which they will be compensated with alternative leave on other days. The primary purpose of these alternative leaves is to safeguard the mental well-being of doctors and to ensure they remain connected with their family life. This directive aligns with the standards set by the National Medical Commission (NMC). However, many medical colleges in India still fail to grant the mandated leave to PG medical students, causing them to suffer from mental stress and professional burnout," the release further added.
The State President of UDF Haryana and Chandigarh, Dr. Amit Vyas, opined that the resident doctors in every medical college should receive leaves as per the Rohtak model.
"For the first time, it feels like the administration is valuing our personal time — this is not just about leave, but about the acknowledgment of our very humanity," Dr. Vyas told Medical Dialogues, adding that resident doctors in India have long struggled with excessive duty hours, lack of weekly offs, and limited personal time—factors that have led to burnout, mental fatigue, and even depression—while structured leave policies remained unaddressed in many state-run and even central institutions until now, prompting UDF to plan RTI campaigns in states where residents are still denied their rightful leave.
UDF is now demanding that this order gets implemented across all medical colleges in India and that the duty hours for doctors get fixed at 8 hours per day, with additional leave granted for extra work.
Commenting on this, UDF Chairperson and National President Dr. Lakshya Mittal said, "Doctors risk their lives to serve humanity. If they are not treated humanely themselves, it will prove detrimental to society as a whole."
Doctors undergoing Junior Residency during the period of Postgraduate medical education complain of long duty hours, low pay, almost inhuman working conditions, lack of basic necessities, and even lack of a clear structure of what is expected. The Government introduced the Central Residency Scheme 1992 after the Supreme Court took note of the issue and directed the formation of a Uniform Central Residency Scheme that would set up a defining base for all functioning of resident doctors in the country.
The Central Residency Scheme specifically provides the maximum number of duty hours done by a resident doctor. In particular, it says, "Continuous active duty for resident doctors will not normally exceed 12 hours per day. Subject to exigencies of work the resident doctors will be allowed one weekly holiday by rotation. The resident doctors will also require to be on call duty not exceeding 12 hours at a time. The junior Residents should ordinarily work for 48 hours per week and not more than 12 hours at a stretch subject to the condition that the working hours will be flexible as may be decided by the Medical Superintendents concerned keeping in view the workload and availability of doctors for clinical work."
However, allegedly, these rules remained only on pen and paper and the resident doctors continued working without proper rest. Meanwhile, NMC in 2023 published the PGMER 2023 in the official Gazette. While it did not specify the upper ceiling of working hours for the resident doctors, these regulations said, "All post-graduate students will work as full-time resident doctors. They will work for reasonable working hours and will be provided reasonable time for rest in a day."
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that highlighting violations of duty hours regulations for resident doctors at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Bhubaneswar, Bibinagar and Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) Pune, the National President of UDF, Dr. Mittal had requested the National Medical Commission (NMC) and Directorate General of Health Sciences (DGHS) to investigate the issue and take strict disciplinary action.
UDF recently sought an urgent intervention from the Ministry of Social Justice to address the excessive duty hours of resident doctors. Taking note of the same, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment had called for an urgent intervention from the Union Health Ministry to address these grievances.
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