Doctors urged
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, February 03 2023: Pointing out that all sections of the society are severely affected when doctors resort to strikes, Health Minister Dr Sapam Ranjan has appealed to the medical fraternity to give up all thoughts of resorting to strikes under any circumstances.

Responding to a call attention motion raised by MLA Kh Joykisan regarding the announcement made by the All Manipur Health Services Doctors' Association to resume their strike, Dr Sapam Ranjan maintained that the Government took serious note of the demands raised by the doctors but the demands could not be granted instantaneously.

The demands need thorough consideration, the Health Minister said on the floor of the House.

The Government had talked with the doctors twice on their demands which include time-bound promotion, he said.

Promotion of doctors is done based on availability of vacant post and there is a criterion in the Manipur Health Services Rules which says that doctors should have completed three to five years of service before being promoted from a lower grade to a higher grade, Dr Sapam Ranjan said.

Moreover, the number of sanctioned posts for special grade, grade-I and grade-II are limited and most of them are administrative posts.

Under such circumstances, promotion of doctors in a time-bound manner will only lead to an administrative crisis, he said.

Raising the retirement age from 62 to 65 is another demand of the doctors, he noted.

There was an instance of raising the retirement age from 62 to 65 in 2016 but it did not cover administrative posts.

Rather it was limited to specialists.

However, as a situation emerged where the specialist doctors may be compelled to work under doctors junior to them, the retirement age was again reduced to 62, the Health Minister said.

At the same time, an avenue should be kept open for newly passed out doctors to join Government service.

At present, there are around 1000 unemployed doctors in the State, he said.

As for the demand pertaining to non-practising allowance, the matter has been already referred to the Finance Department, he added.

Raising the motion, Kh Joykisan remarked that media reports about the All Manipur Health Services Doctors' Association's decision to resume strike has created an uneasy situation among the masses.

There is no guarantee that the Ministers/MLAs, Government officials and the common people will not fall ill, Joykisan said.

He then appealed to the Government to look into the demands of the doctors and do the needful so as to redress the people's anxiety.

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