Telangana: Junior doctors call hunger strike against Hike in Retirement age for faculty

Hyderabad: The junior doctors in the state of Telangana called for a hunger strike today after few days of continuous protests against the proposal to enhance the retirement age of teaching staff in the state medical colleges.

The Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that the announcement made by the State Health Minister that soon an order will be released to escalate the retirement age of faculty from 58 to 65 years.

The move came after the government authorities pointed out that every year a good number of medical professionals retire which adds to the crunch of doctors in the state. Therefore, to fill the dearth, Chief Minister Kalvakuntla Chandrashekhar Rao gave his approval to come up with an order where the retirement age will be increased to 65.

The government highlighted that there is a plan to add more medical colleges in the state, including the setting up of flagship All India Institute of Medical Sciences at Bibinagar, besides increasing more medical colleges. To establish medical colleges, the primary requirement besides infrastructure is that faculty. However, with the state looking at 57 medical teachers retiring with no replacement this year, the process of expansion of medical education in the state would get hampered. The officials had further sighted the deficiency of eligible candidates for the faculty members' post.