Junior medicos to be hired to ease residents’ burden

Junior medicos to be hired to ease residents’ burden

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Ahmedabad: 12.11.2021

The state health department has allowed junior doctors to be hired to reduce the burden of resident doctors in their second year of post graduate courses at government-run medical colleges. Resident doctors had gone on strike recently, claiming that shortage of manpower in civil hospitals due to the delay in new admissions to post graduate courses has significantly increased their workload.

“To meet the shortage, the government has decided to look into the demands to hire junior doctors. Also, patients have to suffer due to shortage of resident doctors. We will hire doctors for a period of three months or till the new batch joins, whichever is earlier,” stated a notification issued by the department on Friday. The junior doctors will be paid a fixed monthly salary of Rs 63,000 which is inclusive of all other entitlements.

NEET-PG exams for MD/MS admissions are usually held in January, but were held in September due to Covid. While counselling was to commence on October 25, petitions challenging a central government notification stalled the process.

Senior resident doctors (final year students from the 2018 batch) were relieved a few months ago. As a result, hospitals have been managing with only two batches, instead of three. The resident doctors of Gujarat, who recently joined a recent nationwide protest over delay in NEET-PG 2021 counselling, have been demanding that they be provided with medical officers to assist them till the new batch joins.