Hyderabad: Doctors to protest against hike in retirement age for professors

Hyderabad: The Telangana Junior Doctors Association on Friday called for a protest against the increase in the age of retirement of professors in medical colleges. The association gave a representation to the principal secretary, health, to revoke the proposal.

Dr P.S. Vijayender, chairman, TJUDA, said increasing the age of retirement would affect young specialist doctors as there would not be any recruitment for another decade. “The government move seems to favour a few senior doctors. The solution for the faculty deficit in new medical colleges is recruitment but not hiking the retirement age,” he said.

He said increasing the retirement age would only postpone the problem by seven years. The association would go on an indefinite strike against the measure, he said.

Dr K. Mahesh Kumar, president of Healthcare Reforms Doctors Association, said the problem lay in delayed recruitment. Besides, there were no promotions to fill the slots vacated by retiring professors. “If assistant professors had been recruited as per regulations, they would have been eligible to be professors by now,” Dr Kumar said.

In solidarity the Kolkata doctors who were attacked, the Telangana Junior Doctors Association held protests across medical colleges and hospitals in state as a part of nationwide protests on Friday. The association requested the Centre to bring a stringent law against those who attack doctors. Doctors wore bandages and protested in front of government hospitals.

Association chairman Dr P.S. Vijayender said attacks on doctors were not due to a single factor. He said corporatisation of health care, non-availability of medicines in government hospitals, under-staffing at state-run hospitals, lack of basic infrastructure and corruption were among the reasons and should be tackled.

The Indian Medical Association (IMA) Telangana state branch also took out a rally and demonstrated protest against the attack on doctors.