Health Bulletin 21/July/ 2025 - Video

The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court recently directed the State Government to pay compensation to a family after a staff nurse of Government Raja Mirasdar Medical College Hospital in Thanjavur accidentally severed the thumb of a newborn baby after delivery.

Previously, the Court had ordered the State to pay Rs 75,000 as interim compensation. In the final order, the HC bench fixed Rs 7,50,000 as the final compensation and asked the State to pay the balance Rs 6,75,000 to the family.

The High Court bench announced the order while considering the plea filed by the baby's father. The history of the case dates back to 2021, when the petitioner's wife gave birth to a girl child on May 25, 2021. Both the child and the mother were treated as in-patient in the Thanjavur-based government hospital.

It was contended by the petitioner that the staff nurse, who was on duty at the time, carelessly took a pair of scissors and hurriedly attempted to remove the venflon from the child's left hand, but, the left thumb of the 14-day-old baby was severed due to negligence. Therefore, the petitioner filed the plea before the High Court seeking compensation.

Condemning the recent Government decision to depute Non-Service Postgraduate (NSPG) doctors away from their originally allotted Government Hospitals, the doctors have demanded an immediate cancellation of all arbitrary deputation orders.

Apart from this, the Tamil Nadu Resident Doctors Association (TNRDA) also demanded the need for a transparent and accurate reporting of manpower requirements during counselling, and a clear policy to prevent exploitation of non-service PG doctors. They also demanded an urgent posting of the MRB 2025 selected candidates waiting in the recruitment pool.

In a recent release, the resident doctors in Tamil Nadu under TNRDA pointed out how recently, due to an administrative decision, Non-Service Postgraduates (NSPG) were deputed away from their originally allotted Government Hospitals. In some of the cases, they were deputed to institutes located 3 to 4 hours away from their place of residence.

The association pointed out how this administrative move caused undue stress and hardship to the affected doctors, who are already working under challenging conditions.

Bringing good news to the postgraduate (PG) medical aspirants, Tamil Nadu has proposed to launch new PG medical courses in 13 government medical colleges from the academic year 2026-2027.

Of these 13 medical colleges, 11 colleges were established in 2022, while the existing PG seats will be increased at the two-year-old Kalaignar Centenary Super Speciality Hospital (KCSSH).

Issuing an official order in this regard, the State Government has granted permission to start new PG courses in the 13 GMCs and to increase the seats in the existing PG programmes at KCSSH.

As per the latest media report by The Hindu, the Essentiality Certificate has already been issued, and the State has also granted permission to the Director of Medical Education and Research to apply for the approval from the National Medical Commission (NMC), the Apex Medical Education Regulatory Body in India.

Altogether 460 new PG seats have been proposed at the government medical colleges in Pudukottai, Karur, Ramanathapuram, Tiruppur, Tiruvallur, Namakkal, Virudhnagar, Nilgiris, Kallakurichi, Dindigul, Nagapattinam, Ariyalur, and Krishnagiri.