Whole medical community coming in support of Rajasthan doctors, Govt still insensitive

December 26, 2017 Editorial Team

Today it reached 9 days since the strike of government in service doctors started on 18th December (or to say 16th dec) due to advance arrests of >50 doctors made by raj police on govt orders.

It appears that health minister Kalicharan Saraf failed to resolve the issue and Chief Minister show no direct concern on this issue. [su_button url=”https://ctt.ec/740eB” target=”blank” background=”#f0efab” color=”#242020″ size=”3″ radius=”round” icon=”icon: twitter” icon_color=”#34d6f7″]Click to tweet![/su_button]

It appears that Health Minister is taking this issue with complete insensitivity and carelessness which is clearly demonstrated by strike happening again just within 1 month time period. Two strikes by a intellectual group of people clearly shows failure on the part of minister.

To recap, a MOU was reached on 12th Nov after the strike for 6 days and agreement was reached on 18 points out of 33. The environment was happy because doctors also felt that government is at least started considering on valid demands of doctors. Everything went fine and work started as usual.

But suddenly govt released transfer orders for 12 of the doctors which included names of core committee of doctor’s association. This was a shock for all doctors, it was highly unexpected. Over this Dr. Ajay Choudhary, President ARISDA who was working as Churu CMHO was sent to a CHC at hindon city. This looked like a action of grudge by the state govt. Secondly govt also showed carelessness in implementation of MOU and even the orders which were made are not at par with the MOU of 12th Nov. We received a detailed description from ARISDA, Jodhpur branch regarding implemetations done by govt on doctor’s demand ([su_button url=”https://www.dropbox.com/s/5ww342czpl8pupx/Arisda%20gyapan%20pointwise%20details%20.pdf?dl=0″ target=”blank” background=”#fdfdda” color=”#242020″ size=”4″ radius=”round” icon=”icon: dropbox” icon_color=”#1523f1″]Download here[/su_button])

Why hype on transfers?

Someone may ask why making such hype on transfers. We asked this to a active ARISDA member, and he replied, “The reason is in Medical and Health department, transfers are banned for last 2 year or more time. Even a young female doctor who got posting in a very remote area with no proper quarter and living condition cannot get transfer to a better place. Only transfers are done on deputation basis for only those who have special approach to health ministry. In such situations, transfer of more than 4 doctors of doctors association just after the MOU, clearly show government attitude or revenge and when our own government and ministers decide to take revenge against employees, it becomes difficult to work.”

As a result, Rajasthan doctors association again declared mass strike from 18th Dec if government does not respect the terms of MOU and stop oppressive actions against doctors. But govt on the other hand took a step ahead and started detaining doctors from all districts from 15/12/2017 night itself on basis of S151 (means Santi Bhang). This aggrieved the situation and in place of 18th doctors were forced to go under hiding from 16/12/2017 itself.

Doctors were detained from their OPD and homes. Detained doctors were also denied bail and were kept in custody for the whole night. And over it the SDMs at some places set bail at Rs. 10000000.

Read this news article to know more on the treatment done by police on detained doctors. Doctors recall horror of 36 hours behind bars

Doctors strike became inevitable and government kept it’s waywardness, result the deadlock continued for more than 10 days. Looking at all this situation and lack of better judgment and insensitivity of rajasthan government all the doctors and resident doctors association came forward in support of ARISDA. Doctors association like AIFGDA, AIIMS-RDA, FORDA, IMA and even private doctor associations of rajasthan came forward. But unfortunately state government is still having insensitive attitude on this matter.

Could government have handled the situation in a better way??

Government has extreme powers over their employees. But with powers it should also have empathy. When a MOU was reached between govt and doctor’s association, taking action under grudges shows weakness of government. The transfers can be put to a hold for 3-4 months. Doctors agitations and strikes also occured in Maharastra, Karnataka and other states in the past few months but the respective state governments have handled the disputes within time and avoided the havoc like Rajasthan. It will not be incorrect to say that:

Biggest healthcare sector failure of the year – Rajasthan Government. [su_button url=”https://ctt.ec/O7SaV” target=”blank” background=”#f0efab” color=”#242020″ radius=”round” icon=”icon: twitter” icon_color=”#34d6f7″]Click to tweet![/su_button]

Read our older posts related to this issue:

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