Hyderabad: Telangana government doctors who worked during the second wave of COVID-19 have been denied their wages for the four-month period from May to August 2021.
According to the doctors, around 1,200 of them have not been paid. They also claim that the government owes nearly Rs 3 lakhs to each doctor for the aforementioned duration.
The general secretary of Telangana Junior Doctors Association (TJUDA) while speaking to The New Indian Express, remarked that “the 2018 batch’s bond that they would work in government hospitals expired on April 30, 2021. A memo was then issued by the health secretary which stated that the batch will be paid stipend on par with senior residents from June 1.”
The memorandum said that from June 1 the students of the 2018 batch and 2019 diploma batch (who were then in their final year of medicine) will be paid Rs 80,500 till they completed their final post-graduate exams. But after their exams finished on August 13, the wage for the four-month period was not paid.
Director of Medical Education (DME) Dr K Ramesh Reddy played down the issue and even said funds were not a problem despite doctors alleging that the funds were released from the DME office and many colleges were paid their dues.