Shawdesh Desk:

Trainee post-graduate and intern doctors on Saturday went on 48-hour strike at all healthcare facilities across the country to press their four-point demands, including payment of arrears and allowance hike.

The doctors also threatened to go on an indefinite strike at all hospitals from Monday if their demands were not met.

They made the announcement after a meeting with the health minister Samanta Lal Sen Saturday noon when the minister assured the protesting doctors of considering their demands within 24 hours.

Zabir Hossain, the president of Postgraduate Private Trainee Doctors Association, a platform of the protesters, said that they had placed their demands to the authorities on several occasions but nobody took any effective measures to solve the issue.

‘If our demands are not met by March 25, we will go on work abstention for an indefinite period,’ he said.

Trainee and intern doctors will, however, continue their services in casualty department, he added.

Protesting doctors said that many trainee doctors in many institutions were not getting allowance for the past eight months. They demanded an increase in their allowance to Tk 50,000 from existing Tk 20,000 for postgraduate trainee doctors and Tk 30,000 from Tk 15,00o for interns.

Several hundred trainee doctors block the road in front of Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery in the capital to press their four-point demands.

At one stage the health minister held a meeting with representatives of the protesters and assured them of fixing the problems within 24 hours and urged the doctors to join their duty.

The 4-point demands also include restarting allowance for resident and non-resident doctors under Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University and to enact a law for the prevention of violence against doctors.

A doctor, who works for 14 hours or more every day, is given Tk 20,000 a month very irregularly, said Trainee doctor Habibur Rahman.

‘How can a doctor survive in this situation,’ he asked seeking the authorities’ intervention.

After completing five-year Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery course, a student joins as intern for another year.

Doctors at different institutions secure admission in postgraduate courses to acquire specialised knowledge.

Around 8,000 postgraduate trainees and 2,000 intern doctors are employed to discharge healthcare for people in hospitals across the country along with regular doctors in the hospitals.

Hospital officials said that due to the work abstention of the huge number of professionals, regular services in the hospitals hampered.

Protesters said that the authorities should increase the allowance matching with inflation and price hike of essential commodities.