Bengaluru: The Karnataka government has accepted the demands of contracted doctors who had threatened to stop working from 8 July, but with a rider — they must perform to be made permanent government employees.
The doctors had resigned en masse on 30 June, demanding a salary hike to Rs 60,000 from Rs 45,000, and that their jobs be regularised. Wearing black badges in protest, 600 MBBS doctors had given an ultimatum to state Health Minister B. Sriramulu to either accept their demands or their resignations.
The demand for salary hike was accepted on 3 July. And Tuesday, Sriramulu told ThePrint that he had accepted the second demand, to regularise their posts, in principle. The rider is that the posts will be regularised on the basis of performance.
“Their work will be observed, and then we will regularise them. Based on their performance, the 600 doctors who are on strike will be made permanent. As of now there are 2,000 vacant posts for doctors in the health department. The rest of the 1,400 posts will be filled through direct recruitment,” Sriramulu said.
He also appealed to the striking doctors to resume work as soon as possible, as “we need to be united in the fight against the pandemic”.
On the issue of salary hike, Sriramulu said the demand had been accepted and that there would be no more hikes. The minister said he would now place his decision before the cabinet for approval.
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Spike in cases
The number of Covid-19 cases has registered a massive spike in the last one week. On 1 July, the state recorded 947 cases on a single day, but on 6 July, the daily number had gone up to 1,843 positive cases.
Days before this spike, the contracted doctors had submitted a representation, asking the state government to resume the practice of regularising posts, which was discontinued by in 2017. The doctors said they worked round the clock, but were not compensated adequately, and despite promises to regularise their posts, they claimed no action was taken on this front.
A contracted doctor in Tumakuru told ThePrint on the condition of anonymity that while they are being hailed as “Covid warriors”, the reality was that the government was treating them “unfairly”.
“The government should take a firm stand about treating us well. We put our lives at risk and help treat patients. We also have families to take care of,” the doctor said.
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