Stipend Pending for 2 months, Arrears Not Paid: Telangana Junior Doctors threaten to Boycott Duties from October 30
Hyderabad: Raising the issue of delayed payment of stipend and arrears, the junior resident doctors in Telangana have given a call to boycott their duties from October 30.
Writing to the Director of Medical Education (DME), Telangana in this regard, the doctors have pointed out how their stipend for the months of August, and September is still pending. Further, they informed the DME that they have not received their arrears as well.
The doctors warned the authorities to boycott their duties from October 30 if the pending stipends for the months of August and September and the arrears are not paid to us by that day.
"We are writing to bring to your attention a critical issue that affects junior residents across the state of Telangana. The matter at hand pertains to the delayed disbursement of stipends, which is causing significant hardships for many junior residents," the doctors mentioned in the letter directed to Telangana DME.
As per the letter, the doctors did not receive the stipends for August, September and arrears despite many representations to the State Health Secretary, financial secretary and the DME office.
Explaining that every junior doctor is a bread earner in their respective families, the doctors further mentioned in the letter, "As Dussera festival is in next two days mostly every junior doctor is a bread earner for their family members. Many junior doctors are under financial pressure and waiting for pending stipends to credit and incase if we don't get the stipends as early as possible we junior doctors might be forced to boycott the duties and go for strike from 30/10/2023 as it's the only option we can foresee for now."
The representation from the Telangana Junior Doctors alleging non-payment of stipend comes at a time when the issue of non-payment of stipend to the MBBS interns and PG medicos has reached the Apex Court.
Taking note of the claim that 70 percent of medical colleges do not get paid any stipend or are paying the minimum stipend to doctors who are doing their MBBS internships, the Apex Court bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud directed the NMC to file a report giving the details about this claim and also directed the Commission to be informed what steps have been taken to ensure payment of stipend to them as per the NMC norms.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that revealing the results of its online survey, the National Medical Commission (NMC) had earlier revealed that 10,178 responses were received from PG medical students. Further, the Commission informed that altogether 2110 PG students of various private medical colleges across the country were not receiving any stipend.
While 4288 students stated that they were not being paid equal stipend with the students of government medical colleges in the respective states, 1228 students submitted that the stipend paid to them by colleges/institutes is taken back by the management.
