The Maharashtra State Medical Teachers Association (MSMTA) has demanded time-bound written assurance on their demands and said that it will decide the future course of its agitation, which has already reached 45 days, at a general body meeting to be held on Tuesday.
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The teachers body has been demanding regularisation of posts, full rollout of the seventh pay commission and time-bound promotions.
“Despite positive discussions between state medical education secretary Saurabh Vijay and our representatives, there has been no time-bound written assurance from the state to our various demands,†Dr Sameer Golawar, secretary of the MSMTA, told The Indian Express.
At Pune’s B J Medical College and Sassoon General Hospital, Dr Ibrahim Ansari, president of the Pune branch of the MSMTA, said that they would participate in Tuesday’s meeting and wait for instructions from the central unit of the MSMTA on the way forward. “While we are working to safeguard the patients’ interests, the state also needs to understand our grievances and meet our demands,†Dr Ansari said.
“Our main demand is to regularise the services of 300 medical teachers across 19 government medical colleges in the state. Assurances were given time and again by the state, these temporary medical teachers working on sanctioned posts and legally selected via divisional selection board will be made permanent. They have worked for two years continuously during the Covid pandemic at the cost of their lives,†Dr Golawar said.
Allowances as per the seventh pay commission also need to be given, Dr Golawar said. “There is no career advancement for our medical teachers even though they worked so hard during the pandemic- at a time when private hospitals were not entertaining covid patients. Why is there so much apathy from the government? For the last one and a half months, there have been peaceful demonstrations and protests,†Dr Golawar said.
However, according to Dr Golawar, on Monday, more than 1,000 pre-planned surgeries were deferred across several state-run medical colleges as teachers and doctors withdrew from clinical work.
IMA urges CM to stand up for doctors
Recently the Indian Medical Association (IMA) wrote a letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray opposing the announcement made by Medical Education Minister Amit Deshmukh to suspend a doctor at Mumbai’s J J hospital for the shortage of medicines. The IMA, in an official statement, urged the chief minister to stand up for doctors. “While the doctor was just prescribing medicines to the patient, how can he be made accountable for the shortage of medicines,†IMA office-bearers said.
