Maharashtra Resident Doctors' strike

After a gruelling 12 days the indefinite strike by the resident doctors has been called off by the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) (wonder what they were thinking when they came up with the acronym. On second thoughts, I’d rather not know). The impasse between the negotiating parties ended after over nine hours of negotiations.
“The Government has agreed to all our demands and we will be joining duties from tomorrow 8 a.m. (those in Mumbai) and within 24 hours (in other parts Maharashtra).” says yesterday’s post on the MARD blog covering the strike. The 10 point demands included improvements in the hospital working conditions, security, doctor-patient ratio and stipend as well as timely MCI recognition and livable accommodation for the doctors.

Commendable yet surprising is the alacrity with which the government has handled the situation (I could’ve said Jack Robinson a couple of million times over, yes, but 12days is still pretty good for an apathetic bureaucracy. And as for the strike, it was no walkover).
Since as far as one can look back strikes by resident doctors once every three to four years have become the rule rather than an aberration. The demands too are predictable: better working conditions, a rise in stipend and better accommodation. And why wouldn’t they be. Imagine having to share a poky , ill ventilated room with 7 people, sleeping on mattresses and linen infested with bed-bugs - that is if you get time too sleep at all from your 24x7 schedule. Add to this toilets that stink worse than the ones at public bus-stations, regular thefts of belongings from hostel rooms, the constant threat of contracting work related diseases like TB, AIDS and Hepatitis B, duties of as much as 48 hrs at a stretch; all this for a measly Rs. 8340/month, while their counterparts in Delhi get around Rs. 20,000*. And to top it all they get manhandled by irate relatives of patients.
This significant issue of security at the workplace has come into sharp focus since the August-September 2005 strike at JJ. What else do you do when push comes to shove, literally. Bihar has witnessed several protest strikes by the medical fraternity in the wake of the kidnapping of doctors. The junior doctors in Lucknow, Kanpur and Allahabad struck work this January because their colleagues were allegedly manhandled by police recruits on a train. The latest in a series of incidents in the country where the safety of doctors has been compromised is the assault on a doctor of the Forensic Medicine department in Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, Delhi on 8th March while conducting an autopsy.

In the past, the other consistent feature of these strikes has been that they have all failed. Miserably.
The doctors have been able to save face, yes, but that is about all that majority of these protests have amounted to.
What, then, was so different about this strike?
Was it the sheer scale of the protest? Was it the threat of nationwide repercussions by the IMA? "The government of Maharashtra should realize that the Indian Medical Association which has around two lakh doctors, will go on country wide strike and lot of skeletons will tumble out of the cupboards, not only of the state government, but also of the central government." stated Dr Ajay Kumar, the President elect, of the IMA.

Or is there anything different at all...

As per the compromise formula, resident doctors will now be accorded the status of public servants within the state of Maharashtra. This means that an assault on them would be a non bail able offence. That is one issue resolved.A four-member committee will be set up to look into their demands for better work hours and improved living conditions. "This will be a permanent committee and will meet frequently, take review of situations, and whenever required, will come to the government," Minister for Medical Education, Dilip Valse Patil, said. The Cabinet will discuss providing resident doctors a stipend of Rs 12,000 to Rs 13,000 per month. The government however, said that the MARD's demands can only be fulfilled when the necessary laws are amended. The stipend will be increased only after the cabinet approves it.
What this really means is that whether the terms of the agreement are fulfilled now depends on the follow-up by MARD. Which is in turn greatly affected by the fact that these are doctors and are busy working and learning and have exams to face at the end of it all. To assume that the government would not rely on this to bail it out would be a bit myopic.

All this needs to be taken into consideration before we take to the streets celebrating the victory. Can we really term it a victory?

I suppose time shall tell.


*click here for a comparative list of stipends in various state hospitals.

The MARD blog and website:
http://mard-strike.blogspot.com
http://www.mardtoday.bravehost.com/
Other related and articles and posts which make for an interesting read
(these are about earlier strikes):
Damned if you do, damned if you dont.
bandbajao.blogspot

P.S: the acronym made me think of many quite inappropriate things it might stand for, a brand name for sildenafil being one of the more chaste ones.
N.B.: It is pronounced mārd / maard, rhymes with card.