Appointment orders, salary elude non-service senior resident docs

CHENNAI: The non-service senior resident doctors in Tamil Nadu, who have been assured by the State Health Department a pay on par with the medicos of other states, however, are yet to get fresh appointment orders even after three months. Doctors also rue that their salaries are pending since June this year.

The non-service residents of the 2018 batch were posted in various locations without conducting proper counselling. Though the orders confirming them in service are yet to reach these senior resident non-service doctors, they have been posted in flood camps, casualty and other departments instead of the normal posting in parent departments and as a substitute for the service senior resident doctors who took the posts and joined.

“Though UG service candidates and those who have completed MBBS should be posted as EMO, non-service PG students have been posted there and no appointment orders have been given. We are being treated inferior and being discriminated against,” said Dr Joshua Nithian, a non-service senior resident doctor posted at Villupuram Medical

College and Hospital.

The doctors say that they are being given postings without counselling, though earlier non-service resident doctors had requested counselling for appointments.

“After numerous protests and appeals to the state health department, the government agreed to give a stipend of about Rs 75,000. However, the salaries have not yet been paid and there was no proper counselling done to give the postings. Our salaries are pending from June till August and full salaries from September till date have not yet been given though the government has sanctioned till September 2021,” said Dr K Janani, a non-service senior resident doctor in Kanniyakumari.

The doctors also allege that the working order from October has not yet been given. “I have completed general surgery as a postgraduate but our postings are being done in PHC, where only MBBS graduates are given postings. If proper counselling is done, our issues can be settled,” said Vetrivel G, a senior resident doctor from Krishnagiri.

Meanwhile, the officials from the Directorate of Medical Education say that there are no vacancies available in the State and the appointments will be issued after vacancies are created. “The government is trying to create vacancies after the staff allocation is done for PHCs. We just completed counselling for service doctors and then the counselling for non-service senior resident doctors will follow,” said a senior official from the Directorate of Medical Education.

Officials from the Directorate of Medical Education say that there are no vacancies available in the State and will have to be created