Doctors go on mass casual leave, stage protest

Protest scrapping of 50% reserved quota for service doctors in PG courses

Doctors working at the district headquarters hospital and primary health centres in the district, who were members of the Tamil Nadu government doctors association staged ‘dharna’ after taking en-masse casual leave, protesting against the scrapping of 50% reserved quota for service doctors in Post Graduate courses.

Association district secretary Dr Mutharasu and Treasurer Dr. Manojkumar who led the protest in front of the headquarters hospital here, said the High Court order, scrapping the 50% quota for doctors who served in rural areas was a great injustice to them and sought government intervention. They said the government, besides challenging the High Court order by filing an appeal, should come forward to protect the interest of doctors by providing legal protection to the reserved quota.

The scrapping of the quota would not only deprive doctors of their chances of getting admission to PG courses, but affect medical services in rural areas. If doctors could be posted in all the 57 primary health centres in the district, it was because of the quota system, they said. Though doctors availed en-masse casual leave, they ensured that medical services in out-patient, emergency medical services and emergency surgeries remained unaffected, they said.

Virudhunagar

Over 200 members of the Tamil Nadu Government Doctor’s Association went on a mass casual leave and staged a hunger strike pressing for continuation of 50 per cent in-service quota for Government doctors in admissions to post-graduate courses, here on Monday.

The doctors abstained from work for the whole day in 11 government hospitals and 55 primary health centres.

However, they attended to casualty, delivery and paediatric care.

The members also staged dharna in front of the District Headquarters Hospital here and also undertook a day-long fast there.

The protesting doctors said that the scrapping of 50 per cent in-service quota for Government doctors under NEET procedure of admission would hit them.