Demanding to be relieved from COVID duties, 230 GMC Nagpur Resident Doctors go on indefinite mass leave
Nagpur: Calling attention to doctors pursuing post-graduation facing tremendous academic loss as they keep on handling the COVID cases, almost 230 resident doctors of Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Hospital (IGGMCH) have gone on an indefinite leave en masse demanding discharge from COVID duties.
However, emergency and ICU services are unaffected by the stir.
The doctors marked it as a high time that authorities seek an alternative to handle COVID work and PG medicos should be relieved from COVID-19 duties so that they can focus on Post-Graduation (PG) courses. The residents was also demanding back their surgical complex so that they can gain the necessary knowledge in their respective fields.
Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) president at IGGMCH Dr Rajat Agrawal told PTI that, "230 resident doctors decided to go on indefinite mass leave as the issues raised by them in the past remained unresolved. "
"The resident doctors of the Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Hospital have been working selflessly to treat patients during the COVID pandemic waves for the last 15 months," he added.
Dr Agrawal said the resident doctors should be allowed to concentrate on post-graduate studies given the pandemic situation in the Nagpur district is under control now. He also demanded "complete handover of the surgical complex for non-COVID work as per the assurance given by the district collector".
He further claimed the resident doctors had written memorandums of demands to the IGGMCH dean in the past but failed to receive any response either from the hospital administration or the district administration.
"Under this situation when the academics of resident doctors is being completely neglected by the concerned administration, the IGGMCH resident doctors are left with no choice but to withdraw our services from our duties and go on indefinite mass leave from today," Dr Agrawal stated.
Meanwhile, Dr. Asif Patel of IGGMC told Medical Dialogues, " We have been serving in COVID wards for more than a year. We kept on demanding our surgical complex back and urged authorities to allow non-COVID patients also so that we can get practical knowledge about different diseases but to no avail. We are going to be specialist doctors, if we don't get knowledge about our respective disciplines who will take responsibility? This is high time that government arrange medical professionals and appoints them is COVID services and releases us to concentrate on our PG medical courses. We, the doctors of the Medical Education sector must not be burnt out or used for cheap labour. We will continue our protest until our demands are heard."
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