Jaipur: Memorial for doctors who lost lives during Covid

Proposal on demand for separate cadre for doctors pending since 2011 submitted to govt
JAIPUR: Paying homage to doctors who lost their lives to Covid, the government has decided to build a doctors’ memorial at Jaipur’s SMS Hospital. The announcement was made by health minister Raghu Sharma here on Thursday on the occasion of Doctors’ Day.
The memorial will come up outside the 22-storey IPD Tower being built on the hospital premises.
Sharma was addressing a virtual programme and felicitation function on National Doctors’ Day organised by Rajasthan Medical Council. Sharma said the first and second waves of Covid was controlled with the help of doctors, medical staff and personnel.
The work for construction of the 22-floor IPD tower at SMS Hospital at a cost of Rs 300 crore will begin in August. Out of the entire amount, Rs74 crore will be provided under Smart City project and Rs 50 crore each will be provided by the Housing Board and Jaipur Development Authority. The rest Rs 125crore will be provided by the medical education department.
The IPD tower will come up at a place where cottage wards are existing. JDA will demolish the cottage wards soon.
The state government has recruited 2,700 medical officers in the state in the past one year, said Sharma, adding that it had made all efforts to take care of all members of the medical family. He said necessary action had been taken after sympathetically considering the demands such as changing the designation of nurses lying pending for last six years, creating pharmacist cadre, increasing honorarium of resident doctors and ex gratia of Rs 50 lakh on death due to Covid.
Meanwhile, the octors’ demand of creating a cadre for them as per the agreement in 2011 and 2017 is still pending. Sharma said the cadre committee in June had made the proposal in this regard and submitted it to the state government. The proposal will be examined and will be implemented soon by considering it sympathetically.