Govt to treat doctors well

An attractive package has been worked out by an official committee headed by the additional chief secretary to not only give more salary to the doctors but also regularise the services of 600 doctors who are on contract basis.

The members of the Karnataka Government Medical Officers’ Association have threatened to resign from the service en masse on September 29 if their demands are not met by the government.

Secretariat sources said the committee in its meeting held on Thursday finalised a package to pacify the agitating doctors. The package will now be placed before the next Cabinet meeting for its approval.

The committee has favoured regularisation of the services of the contract doctors as a one time measure. Earlier the departments of law, finance and DPAR were against the regularisation in the wake of Supreme Court direction not to regularise the services of contract workers.

But as there is a critical shortage of doctors in rural areas, the committee has decided to regularise the services. The estimated shortage of alopathy doctors is 1,522, while there are 4,500 doctors in service. The health department from last October has not recruited doctors on contract basis. This has been one of the demands of the doctors too.

The doctors on contract service  have been demanding that their service should get weightage when they seek PG admission. The committee has decided to concede the demand in contravention with the service rules.

Salary

Another major demand of the doctors is that they should be paid salary at par with the doctors of the medical education department who are governed by the AICTE pay-scales. While a doctor of the health department at the entry level gets Rs 18,750 a month, a lecturer in medical education department gets about Rs 43,000 per month, official sources said.

The committee, which is convinced that the government doctors are low paid, has favoured a package of Rs 30,000 at the entry level. Those who opt for rural service will get additional Rs 3,000.

Sources said that the increased salary will come in the form allowances. The doctors who have spent their money to study PG will get Rs 10,000 as allowance, while on those the government has spent money will get Rs 7,000. The doctors will also get academic allowance of Rs 2,000 for purchasing books.

In all, the government will have to spend additional Rs 89 crore a year to implement the package.