Resident doctors want tuition fee waiver during Covid times

Nagpur Resident doctors in all government medical colleges in the state are staging demonstration demanding complete waiver of their tuition fee (shaikshanik shulk). According to these doctors, they had taken admissions to various post-graduation medical courses (MD/MS), but the academic sessions were not held as they and their teachers, both were busy in rendering Covid-19 services.
Interestingly, doctors are neither given a strike call nor staging vocal protests. They are standing in front of their respective institutes peacefully showing placards demanding fee waiver during their off-time.
“We are not against Covid service, but we are sustaining academic loss due to it. The general demand of the resident doctors to waive off their tuition fees is very just in such conditions,” said Dr Dnyaneshwar Dhobale, president of central committee of Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD).
In the academic session 2020-21, resident doctors have to pay Rs94,400 as tuition fees per year during their three-year residency. Apart from it, they pay admission fees, development fees, hostel fees etc. The residents have already submitted a memorandum of their demands to the director of medical education and research (DMER) and soon, they are planning to meet medical education minister Amit Deshmukh.
Resident doctors are Covid warriors who worked in the frontline during both the waves in Maharashtra. They are considered as backbone of government medical colleges. They have been raising the academic loss issue since the last one year for now. For doctors, the practical experience they garner during resident years is extremely important and a necessary part of their education.
They had also demanded online examination and relaxation from submitting the thesis. But the state government decided to conduct their examination after August 16 in offline format. No relaxation has been given in thesis so far. Now, they have raised the demand of complete tuition fee waiver as a compensation for their academic loss.
There are more than 4,500 resident doctors in Maharashtra’s medical colleges. Vidarbha region has 850 of them and Nagpur alone houses 350 residents in two government medical colleges. Agitations are going on in every GMC in Vidarbha. Similar agitations are going on in states like Karnataka too.
Mayo residents threaten to go on mass leave from today
The resident doctors of Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Hospital (IGGMCH) have threatened to go on mass leave from 9am on June 1. Their demand is to relieve resident doctors from Covid work and let them concentrate on their respective specialties. “The Covid situation of the district is under control now and we demand complete hand over of the surgical complex for non-Covid work. This assurance was given by the district collector earlier,” said Rajat Agrawal, president of MARD, IGGMCH. Doctors said they have written three reminder letters to the dean as well as the district administration, but received no response.