Around 1,000 young doctors in Kerala, who finished their MBBS course this year, have been on COVID-19 duty in various community health centres and first-line treatment centres across the state. However, over a month later, there is still no clarity on their designation or duty and they have not been paid their salaries.
All they have with them is an order released by the Health Ministry on April 14, 2020 that they will be paid a monthly salary of Rs 42,000.
“Government is pleased to fix Rs 42,000 per month as remuneration to the outgoing interns posted to various rural centres in the wake of exigency of COVID-19 pandemic,” says the order.
There has been no update since. The doctors — all of whom graduated from government colleges — were informed in March that their house surgency period will be extended by 20 days in light of the pandemic situation.
“We are from the batch that joined the MBBS course in 2014 and completed house surgency in 2020. We got our permanent registration in one-and-a-half months. Ideally, registered doctors don’t need to work under the government. But there was an order from the Department of Health Services (DHS) that we need to provide compulsory service for three months. This order was sent to Government Medical College principals without seeking our opinion. However, considering the COVID-19 situation, we were all ready to join the fight,” says a doctor who does not wish to be named.
But issues cropped up one after the other for the doctors. At first, their registration was delayed and this prevented them from being able to write the Public Service Commission exams.
“Finally, we got the registration done on our own initiative,” the doctor says.
Another young doctor, in the same batch, spoke to Light Line News, speaking about the various issues faced by doctors.
After persistent follow-ups, the Health Ministry released another order on their salary, but it was not followed up with an approval from the Finance Ministry.
The young doctors joined community health centres with little clue on their posting. From there, upon the District Medical Officer’s instructions, the junior doctors would be sent to First Line Treatment Centres (FLTCs). The FLTCs were launched to house COVID-19 patients who are asymptomatic or showed mild symptoms.
“The Medical Officers in these centres would leave it all to us after the first round. We end up doing outpatient consultations in the morning and corona data entry in the afternoon. Most of us have to travel 40 to 60 km every day to reach the FLTCs,” the doctor says.
The last straw for the doctors was the government announcing a salary hike for employees of the National Health Mission (NHM). “Till then we thought that the government treated all health workers alike. But while there has been no update on our salaries or posting all this time, they announce a hike for NHM doctors. Why is it not applicable to us?” the doctor asks.
Most DMOs have asked for an extension of three more months of duty of these young doctors. This, they fear, may go on indefinitely since there is no clear picture of when the COVID-19 situation will change.
The Association of Kerala Junior Doctors of 2020-21 have written a memorandum to the Chief Minister, Health Minister, Health Secretary, DHS and all DMOs, to address their issues. The letter was sent on August 1 and they would wait for a favourable decision for two more weeks failing which – on August 15 - the doctors plan to take out a protest.