Verbal talks fail: Maharashtra resident doctors continue indefinite strike
Mumbai: The resident doctors in Maharashtra have decided to continue with their pan-Maharashtra strike as the authorities again offered them verbal assurances instead of fulfilling their demands.
After the commencement of their strike on Thursday i.e. 22.02.2024, the State Government called for a meeting of all representatives of the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) on Friday at 3 PM.
Accordingly, the representatives of the association met with the DMER as scheduled previously with the Minister of Medical Education Department. All members of Central MARD representing the Government Medical College across Maharashtra including Presidents and General secretaries of individual colleges were present in person at the meeting.
However, the authorities gave the protesting doctors verbal assurances and asked them to call off the strike. Referring to this, Central MARD mentioned in a release dated 23.02.2024, "This was done despite us reiterating to the Government that repeated verbal assurances with non-execution of promises has created a serious sense of distrust among the resident doctors."
The association mentioned that all the members and resident doctors unequivocally voted to continue the strike citing the Government's failure to fulfill their demands despite frequent verbal assurances.
Therefore, announcing its decision to continue the strike, MARD mentioned in the release, "Thus with the collective and unanimous decision of all members Central MARD has decided to Continue with the PAN MAHARASHTRA strike until our legitimate demands of Hostel Accommodation, Stipend Regularization and Stipend Hike are met."
"We are extremely apologetic for the hampered patient care during the strike," the association mentioned, adding that all emergency services will remain functional during the strike. "...But the responsibility of any hampered patient care will solely lie upon the Government."
The resident doctors have initiated the strike over their demands regarding hostel accommodation, stipend regularisation and stipend hike. This is not the first time that the Government has offered verbal assurances to the resident doctors.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported about the announcement on behalf of MARD to go on an indefinite strike starting from February 07, 2024, if their demands regarding the hostel accommodation and regularisation of stipend were not met.
The demands of the association were the availability of adequate hostel accommodation for Junior and Senior Resident doctors, payment of stipend to resident doctors' bank accounts by the 10th of every month with clearance of outstanding stipend till date, and payment of stipend at the same scale as that of Central Institutes.
While the pan-Maharashtra strike was scheduled to commence on 07.02.2024, the Central MARD had a momentous meeting with the Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, Minister of Medical Education Hassan Mushrif, and the Secretaries and office bearers of Medical Education, DMER, PWD and the Finance Ministry.
Thereafter, the resident doctors in Maharashtra called off their strike as they received written assurance from the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) regarding their pending demands including proper hostel accommodation, timely payment of stipend and a hike of monthly stipend of residents by Rs 10 thousand.
MARD had warned that if the Government failed to execute its promises in 10 days, the residents would be forced to initiate an All Out Pan Maharashtra indefinite strike.
However, despite the written assurance from the authorities, the demands of the resident doctors still have not been fulfilled. Therefore, MARD recently announced its decision to commence a pan_Maharashtra strike from February 22, 2024.
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