Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Token strike by PG doctors

Photo: M. Periasamy

GAINING STRENGTH: Medical students were joined by their parents in the strike in the city on Wednesday. —

COIMBATORE: Post-graduate doctors in the Coimbatore Medical College went on a token strike on Wednesday in protest against the State Government’s order that they should serve in rural areas for three years after the course.

The post-graduates indicated they would also begin a battle against the order even as the MBBS students’ strike gained strength in the city with their parents also joining them.

The parents sat along with the students at the protest venue at Gandhipuram throughout the day, demanding that the Central Government withdraw the plan for a year’s rural service after the completion of the five-and-a-half year course.

Members of the Coimbatore Branch of the Tamil Nadu Medical Post-graduates Action Council said the Government order stated that their certificates would be retained for not less than two years, which had not been mentioned in the prospectus, in the bond or at the time of counselling or admission to the course.

The doctors said they were not against serving in rural areas.

But, they were only against that being temporary. They insisted on the service being a permanent one.

Otherwise, they would not get preference to super speciality courses.

Since they did not refuse to serve in the rural areas, their certificates should be issued upon completion of the post-graduate course, the council members said.

Insisting on a quick response from the Government to their demands, the post-graduate doctors pointed out that patient care in the hospital would suffer if they continued with their strike.

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