Lucknow: 800 doctors to go on indefinite strike at KGMU

LUCKNOW: Health care services at King George's Medical University (KGMU) will be hit from Tuesday onward, with around 800 junior and senior resident doctors declaring an indefinite boycott from work, except that of emergency services.

In it's written notification to the university administration, the Resident Doctor's Association (RDA) has threatened that if its demands for pay equal to that Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) is not met by the 'deaf government', doctors will be forced to go on a complete work boycott.

The letter, signed as 'disappointed but united RDA, KGMU' has been sent to the vice chancellor (VC) and marked to the chief medical superintendent (CMS), medical superintendent (MS), registrar, finance officer and heads of all KGMU departments.

The notice states that the RDA has been demanding pay status equal to SGPGIMS residents for the last two and a half years, pushing the matter up with higher authorities in the government whenever possible.

"We have kept our demands forth the former chief minister (CM) Akhilesh Yadav, as well as the current CM Yogi Adityanath, minister of health education, Ashutosh Tandon and chief secretary Rajneesh Dubey. We were assured that our demands will be accepted by April 11, 2018 after which we had stepped back from the boycott. But to our greatest disappointment, we were fooled by government officials," read the letter.

Reacting to the threat, CMS Prof SN Sankhwar said, "The university has been pursuing talks with the government representing KGMU residents, and there seems to be a positive response on it. We are hopeful that resident doctors looking at the health of poor patients, will keep their patience and will act accordingly. The residents have been called to have a meeting with the VC on Tuesday."

Vice president of the association, Dr Ganesh Yadav however pointed out, "Our demands have remained unmet since two and a half years. The first letter to the administration, after waiting for around three months of false assurances, was sent on August 4. Since the last one week, we have been working with black ribbons on our arms. On Saturday we wrote to the VC for a meeting, but all officials kept passing the buck and only the MS met us, with inconclusive talks. All through Monday, the VC did not meet us and is now asking us to meet on Tuesday. How else should we get our demands be heard then when the administration and government are not co-operating."