Members of the Maharashtra State Gazetted Medical Officers Association Group A (MAGMO) have threatened to tender mass resignations on May 1 over their various demands. Pesident of MAGMO Dr Rajesh Gaikwad told reporters here today that the Supreme Court had issued directives on the policies to be adopted for government medical officers in 1987 that were adopted and implemented by 22 states across the country. “But Maharashtra failed to do so till date, despite its assurance,” he said. The state government should earmark eight per cent of its budgetary allocation for medical and health machinery while only 1.75 per cent has been spent on the same till date. “The state government has not treated its medical officers at par with other state government employees. The 6th Pay Commission was implemented with retrospective effect from the year 2006 for other employees, but for us it was implemented with effect from 2009,” Dr Gaikwad said. The government should recruit more doctors so that we can provide services in shift duties round the clock, MBBS doctors working on temporary basis should be regularised; te Ayurvedic doctors working at government rural health centres should be promoted are some other their other demands. Memoranda to this effect had been submitted to various authorities like, district collectors, chief executive officers of zilla parishads and so forth in all the districts including the Chief Minister, Health Minister and others, recently, he said. “If the government fails to meet our demands, we have no option but to resign from the services. 12,000 government doctors supported by around 15,000 doctors working on contract would be submitting their resignations en-mass on May 1,” he said. PTI
