Senior doctors in Hyderabad to boycott emergency services too over pending salary

HYDERABAD: Even though Health Minister T Harish Rao on Thursday gave assurance that the issue of pending salaries will be addressed soon and a new software developed to regularise the payment through online mode, senior doctors have decided to continue with their protests and also to boycott emergency services from Friday, due to “lack of clarity” on other demands.

It may be mentioned here that the protesting senior resident doctors, who are demanding the government to clear their salaries pending for the last four to seven months, have been boycotting elective services, including outpatient services, since Wednesday.

“The Health Minister has not mentioned anything about the stipend of May 2021,  when we offered our services during the peak of Covid second wave. We also want clarity with regard to completion of our senior residency,” said a doctor.

If they boycott the emergency services too, patients in government hospitals across the State will be deprived of life-saving treatment. There are a total of 698 doctors in 29 hospitals under 18 medical colleges in the State and if all them boycott services, there will be very few doctors available to treat the patients. 

The situation will be worse in districts, other than Hyderabad where even junior doctors won’t be available. On a normal day, around 100 patients avail emergency services at each government hospital in all the districts. It will become difficult for the assistant doctors, who mostly work on contract basis, Duty Medical Officers and Civil Assistant Surgeons to handle the situation as they are very few in number.