Mangaluru: Medicos, PG docs demand pending stipend

Demanding stipend, medical interns and post graduate doctors, staged a protest in front of Wenlock Hospital, in Mangaluru on Monday.

They are currently serving at the Government Wenlock Hospital, Regional Advanced Paediatric Care Centre and Lady Goschen Hospital. Interns and PG Students Association-K CET batch staged the protest.

Indefinite strike

The protesting students warned of an indefinite protest from November 1, if the problem was not sorted out by October end.

The protesters said that they had not received stipend since March 2018. A total of 51 house surgeons (medical interns) and 38 post graduate doctors (who qualified through K -CET and were allotted government quota seat at KMC, Mangaluru) are serving at the Wenlock and Lady Goschen Hospitals since March.

Under duress

“We toil and serve patients. We are denied the stipend that we ought to get,” said the protesters.

"We have financial constraints and are unable to pay educational loan EMIs. We cannot even pay the hostel mess bill. The stipend is our sole source of income. We are pushed to a point of desperation,” said the protesting students.

Stipend sanctioned

House surgeons get a monthly stipend of Rs 20,000, while PG students should get Rs 30,000, Rs 35,000 and Rs 40,000 for the first, second and third year of their services.

Though the government has sanctioned the stipends, the Department of Medical Education has not released the amount, citing objections by the Principal Accountant General.

PAG's objections

Last year, the Principal Accountant-General had objected to paying stipends to students of private medical colleges. Interns and PG students serving at Davangere district hospital and Wenlock Hospitals, are facing the problem of non-payment of stipends, they added.

Wenlock Hospital Superintendent Dr H Rajeshwaridevi said “I have brought the stipend issue to the notice of Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner Sasikanth Sentil S. The government order of 2004-05 entitles medical interns and PG students their stipends. We have appealed to the government to release the amount, as these students are serving at a district hospital.”