Hyderabad: Covid scare puts PG medicos in a bind over government job bait

Hyderabad: Telangana government has announced recently that it is going to absorb 1,191 PG medicos, who wrote final years exams in June, to work as Senior Residents in State hospitals but the doctors acceptance depends on various factors.

First of all, parents and family members of these freshly passed out PG doctors are not keen on their sons or daughters to slog it out on Covid duties in various State hospitals. Also, health concern is a major issue for these PG medicos as nearly 120 healthcare professionals mostly PG medicos from Osmania tested positive to Covid and how prepared they are mentally to work in Covid wards is the big question.

The other factor that is bound to have an impact on filling the 1,200 jobs is the place of posting. Some are not keen on joining duties in teaching hospitals of government medical colleges that are in far-off places from Hyderabad. Out of the 1,191 posts, half of them are in district hospitals.

It may be mentioned here that the Health department has chosen TIMS, Gachibowli as the second covid hospital apart from Gandhi hospital. But functioning got delayed as one-year contract recruitment for various posts and salaries quoted were not to the liking of the senior doctors.

To overcome this issue, the Health department has decided to utilise the services of just PG finished super-specialty medicos to get the ball rolling in TIMS. As many as 150 posts have been earmarked at TIMS for the PG doctors while another 250 posts for Gandhi Hospital. In all 400 PG medicos have to work on Covid duties in Gandhi and TIMS, Gachibowli.

The pay fixed is Rs 70,000 consolidated remuneration per month and the time period of this job is one year. A PG medico stated that non-clinical medicos from microbiology, pharmacology, community medicine, biochemistry, physiology etc will more or less accept the posts as they would not be directly treating the Covid cases.

PGs from General Medicine, Pulmonary Medicine and Anesthesia will be in thick of action as far as Covid duties are concerned. It remains to be seen how many of them decline the job offers citing various reasons including family pressures to stay away from work for some time until situation comes back to normal.

Another PG medico said that the government offer is a tempting one because SRship is mandatory for any PG medico if he wants to get into teaching side (Assistant Professor job) in the near future.

Also, earlier there used to be just over 250 SRship opportunities and outgoing students (1200 to 1400 every year from Kaloji) used to vie for them. But now because of Covid the department has increased the posts which means that almost all passed out PGs will get the opportunity to join the one-year job.