Chennai:The Madras High Court today said that government doctors do not have the right to stage any sort of protest.
The court made the statement while hearing the writ petitions filed by government doctors who were subjected to inter-district transfers after members of Federation of Government Doctors’ Association (FOGDA) restored to a strike between 25 October and 1 November 2019.
Justice N Anand Venkatesh cancelled the transfer orders issued by the state government.”The doctors and government should arrive at an amicable solution in the long pending issues”, he said.
During the previous hearings, advocates representing the doctors argued that the transfers must be quashed on the solitary ground that the en masse transfers were nothing but victimisation and that the action of the government smacked of arbitrariness and mala fide intention couched in the garb of an administrative decision.
The advocates said that the government had not even spared specialist doctors from being transferred.
The government representative said that the extreme step of transferring was taken to bring in normalcy and ensure that health care services to the poor and the needy were not affected. The government informed the Court that members of Tamilnadu Medical Services were liable to be transferred to any part of the State.
”Though doctors from DME had been transferred to DMS, they could participate in inter directorate transfer counselling in the future and get back to the DME based on their qualifications and seniority as per the rules in force at that relevant point of time. It was not as if they would have to work under DMS forever,” the government said.
Nearly 16,000 government doctors across Tamilnadu launched an indefinite strike on 25 October 2019 over four demands. The demands included periodic salary raise and promotions from the State Health department; rectification of all inconsistencies in GO 4(D)2 (the government order implementing the staffing pattern to the hospitals so as to strengthen the health care delivery systems and sanctioning of posts as per the Medical Council of India guidelines and hiring people according to patient strength); 50 per cent state-wise reservation for PG speciality and super speciality courses; and fourth, transparent counselling while appointing those who have completed their PGs. The strike was later called off after the government’s assurance that the doctors’ demands would be considered.