First year service postgraduate (PG) medical students of the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology and Government Ophthalmic Hospital (RIO-GOH), Egmore, are working without salary for six months.
Delay in disbursing their salaries has left the doctors struggling to meet their expenses as a result of which a number of them - both men and women doctors - were forced to manage their monthly household expenditure by taking loans.
Both service and non-service PGs were facing delays in getting their monthly salary/stipend. Such delays in payment were nothing new at RIO-GOH as a section of PGs noted that this was the case for the last three years. They have made a number of representations to authorities but to no avail.
“We joined on October 20, 2022. We got our salary from October 2022 to January 2023 only on July 26. Still, salaries for six months are pending. I am managing by taking loans by pledging gold jewellery,” said one of the PGs, who did not want to be named. This payment came only after several appeals to authorities.
Non-service PGs received their monthly stipend till June on July 27 after nine months of joining, another doctor said. Non-service PGs are paid ₹48,000 for the first year and ₹50,000 the second year. Service PGs are paid nearly ₹85,000 (amount varies as per the years of service).
Another PG attributed the delay to administrative failure. “There is inordinate delay in passing proceedings from the office. We have families to take care of. Many of us have EMIs to pay every month. I have been borrowing money from my friends to meet expenses. But how long can we go without our due salaries,” the doctor questioned.
First year PGs start their work at 7 a.m. at the wards where they keep ready the notes and investigation findings of patients. From 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. they work at clinics where they review cases after which documentation work for patients being discharged are taken up and required investigations for new admissions are done. This is followed by theory classes till 4 p.m. They return to the wards to review patients till 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. In case of admission days - 24-hour duty once a week - they are posted at the casualty / emergency trauma of Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital. A PG said that the financial crisis was making it difficult to concentrate on work.
Denying that there was a delay in paying salaries, a senior official of RIO-GOH claimed that the salaries for all PGs were already paid.
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