Within a week of junior and senior resident doctors in Telangana called off their strike after getting a 15 per cent pay hike and their other demands solved, it is now the turn of their counterparts in Andhra Pradesh to strike work.
Starting Tuesday, more than 1,000 junior doctors in Andhra boycotted their duties in the hospitals in the state demanding solition to ehir demands medical colleges of the state if AP government fails to fulfil their demands.
These demands include recognising them as senior residents and hike in their stipend. The Andhra Pradesh Junior Doctors’ Association (APJUDA) wanted all final year postgraduate medical students of both government and private colleges to be considered as senior residents.
The association pointed out that some of these students are even performing duties in Coronavirus wards.
They asked the state government to hike the stipend of senior residents to Rs. 80,000 without further delay, pointing out that this demand has been pending since January 2020.
They also wanted incentives to the doctors doing Covid-19 duties and quarantine facility for them after the Covid duties.
Director of medical education Dr Raghavendra Rao said the government was ready to consider their demands on sympathetic grounds.
We shall resolve their issues within a week and appealed to the doctors to call off their strike.