Maharashtra: Fearing mass strike, govt assures medicos of stipend

The meeting was held between medicos, Medical Education Minister Hasan Mushrif, and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar

Resident doctors have been promised a stipend hike of Rs 10,000, bringing the total to Rs 90,000. Around 8,000 resident doctors across the state were set to go on strike from Wednesday, disrupting essential medical services in Maharashtra. However, it was called off after a joint meeting between medicos, Medical Education Minister Hasan Mushrif and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.

Interestingly, just a day before, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Aaditya Thackeray had posted a picture on X (formerly Twitter) featuring him with office-bearers of the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD). In his post, he mentioned that the conversation revolved around concerns such as hostels for junior and senior doctors, timely payment, and a stipend increase.

"We have withheld the strike for the next two days. If there is no letter or a government resolution till then, there will be an indefinite strike. But the meeting with the ministers has been positive," said Dr Shubham Soni, President, of JJ Hospital-MARD.

He added that a meeting was also held with Mushrif on Tuesday where it was decided that a joint discussion would be held with Pawar.

Notably, before threatening a strike, resident doctors had written a total of 28 letters to ministers and bureaucrats about stipend hikes and increases in the number of hostels.

"Almost across all the medical colleges, the residents are never paid their stipend on time. Non-payment of stipends for multiple months is the inhuman treatment that resident doctors face every month. Whenever the stipend is disbursed, it is done in a highly irregular manner leading to financial insecurity to the resident doctors," MARD had earlier said in a press statement.

Dr Soni noted that there were also meetings held with officials in the past. "But all assurances we received have been verbal with no action," he said. Any strike leads to severe disruption of medical services, especially in the outpatient department.

"We were planning to deploy additional intern doctors in case of a strike. Apart from that, the senior doctors and professors were present," said JJ Hospital spokesperson Dr Rewat Kaninde.