Striking doctors get support

SHILLONG: NEIGRIHMS Resident Doctors’ Association (NRDA) has thrown its weight behind the resident doctors of NEIGRIHMS Cardiology department, who have started their protest due to alleged unfair practices by the NEIGRIHMS administration.
The NRDA has demanded that the administration should resolve the grievances related to the resident doctors of Cardiology Department by Monday afternoon, failing which the NRDA will be forced to join the protest on Tuesday and shut down routine activities. However, emergency and bedside care will continue.
 The protesting doctors now await the arrival of the Director of the Institute, Dr DM Thappa, who is currently out of station and they hope that the Director will call them for discussion.
The protest was called by the resident doctors of Cardiology for the alleged ‘unfair’ conduct of the administration regarding the Doctorate of Medicine examination and alleged harassment meted out on the students of the department. The decision to extend support to the resident doctors of Cardiology department was taken on Saturday after the NRDA was
apprised of the problems faced by the department which included thesis evaluation report of DM examination, 2017, no ‘transparency’ in the process of conducting final year DM examination and ‘harassment’ meted out to the students of DM Cardiology and cancellation of type C quarters allotted to senior residents.
 After a detailed discussion, the resident Doctors’ Association came to a common agreement that the protest by the Cardiology resident doctors is justified and requires a solution at the earliest for the benefit of the Institute. 
The NRDA has laid down several demands which include providing evaluation report of all thesis papers submitted in 2017 for DM Cardiology so that proper guidelines can be followed in future.
The NRDA also wants the grievances of Cardiology resident doctors to be addressed at the earliest and that the examination be conducted in a fair manner in consultation with the concerned department.
 In the petition to the Institute’s Director, the NRDA also asked immediate revocation of the cancellation of type C quarters reserved for residents and allotment of quarters to deserving applicants
 ”Consider increasing the number of allotted type C quarters from 6 to 10,” the petition said.
 The resident doctors of the Cardiology department had called for a three-day protest which started on June 20 and ended on June 22. However, since the matter is still left unresolved, the strike remains in force.