 The Covid-2 wave has been coming under control in Tamil Nadu over the past weeks. At this juncture, on June 14, 2021, postgraduate medical students working in government hospitals across Tamil Nadu staged a demonstration, wearing black badges and demanding hikes on their cycles. All over the country, ambivious students, i.e. undergraduate medical students, are attending compulsory work aid re-residential internship, or CRRI, and the postgraduate students, MD, MS, MCH, and DM students practicing in government hospitals is made a compulsory part of their curriculum. With the added practice of these health workers, Covid patients are being treated. To understand more about why medical students have raised the demand for adequate compensation for their work at present, NewsClip reached out to representatives of Tamil Nadu Resident Doctors Association. So basically, what we had seen is that doctors have been working hard. They have been overworked during these past few months, not only these past few months, but what has been happening is that there has been a disparity between the work and the pay that has been given for the said work. The previous hike by the government was done in the year 2018, and currently the PG's in Tamil Nadu, the first year PG's, we are receiving an amount of rupees 37,000 per month. And for the super speciality PG's, that is DM and MCH PG's, they are receiving an amount of rupees 42,000 per month, first years. So this amount has been statistically covered. We have checked and analyzed with all the other states, and we have found that it is the least in our country. This is considering all the state governments and not the central institutes. The central institutes, for example, AIMS, Jipmar, PGA Chandigar have an amount which is almost three times the set amount that has been given to us. What we have proceeded was a step-by-step approach to the state government. Sending out formal letters to the Honorable Health Secretary, Honorable Health Minister, Honorable Finance Minister, and also our Honorable Chief Minister. We have also approached the Directorate of Medical Education for the same. However, there has been no official written statement released. There have been a series of tweets released by the official TNRDA page and TNMSA regarding the same issue on Twitter with over 900 retweets, but we haven't received any official word in writing. Therefore, it was decided to conduct a black badge demonstration two days ago. The point to be noted is that all services were continued despite the black badge demonstration. There was no service from the doctor's side which was interrupted. All elective services, all emergency services and all COVID duties were continuing as planned. And this has been going on for the past two months with no interruption. Whatever representation we have done to the government has been through a formal manner and through a very step-by-step approach. The least that we had expected from the government was a public release, a formal release or a formal order to be given by the government, if not in the newspapers, at least in the social media. And this has not been done till now. Therefore, our team at TNRDA consisting over 6,000 doctors across Tamil Nadu decided to conduct a black badge demonstration for the same. We are hoping for a favorable response from the government of Tamil Nadu towards our request. So, the thing to be noted is that the previous hike or stipend hike happened in the year 2018 where the salary was actually raised from 28,000 to 35,000 and even that happened unfortunately after a massive protest shook the state. There was no peaceful black badge demonstration or no peaceful protest as such. Almost 5,000 doctors all across the state joined hands and almost 1,000 doctors blocked roads and changed road rockers opposite NMC. So, it was a massive protest and the government literally had to call us and talk and negotiate the demands and they didn't increase the stipend by about 7,000 rupees and made it 35,000 rupees. Then 500 rupees was added every year and now it's 37.5 for the first APGs. So, what has been noted here is the point that even the previous stipend hike happened only because the doctors internally begged for their salaries. So, this is not a good sign of things to be occurring in the country. Number one. And number two, as Ruben particularly elaborated, the past 45 days we have been diplomatically approaching the government. We have been sending almost 100 mails every day from all our accounts. Remember the TNRA consists of all the PDs and the interns in the state and everybody has been sending mails to the government, official mails from their accounts to the health minister, the health secretary, the finance minister, the finance secretary. Whoever think was involved in this issue, who would probably solve this issue for us. We have made sure that everyone has received our mails and we have been documenting everything and not just mails. We have been making formal representations about our demands face to face right from the CEM to the health minister or to the health secretary and the BME. So, we have been hitting at every part of the pyramid right from the beginning and for the past 45 to 50 days the government is also aware of our steps because we keep tweeting about our efforts daily. We keep posting it on social media daily and not just that. We have also been meeting the officials face to face and they have been giving us oral assurances, just blank empty promises and oral assurances that they will meet at the man's and they probably have a solution in hand and they have been keeping us in the dark. But I believe all this is pure epitome because nothing solid has come out of our demands yet and the government though they are giving us oral assurances like nothing in the form of a formal statement or a press release or a government announcement has come forth. So, that is what has been lacking in our from the government side. So, we had to amp up our agitation too. We didn't want to make it as aggressive as enabling states like MP and Telangana went ahead with. We didn't want to disrupt government services at all because doing a massive strike of protest in this situation with the COVID pandemic still not settled would be totally unbecoming of what a good doctor is and that would be catastrophic to both the government and the public in large. So, to make sure that services are disrupted and to make sure that people are not affected but also make sure that the government knew about our grief and they had to listen to our voice. We had no other option but to actually change the black badge demonstration. As Ruben pointed out, no services were stopped and disrupted at all. Everything went as planned and as it was before the Black West demonstration and the doctors who came for the demonstration where all doctors were off-duty or doctors who sacrificed their resting hours for the sake of this cause and we just hope that the government will probably respond to our calls of grief because our state performs wonderfully in the healthcare sector. We have a great healthcare sector thanks to our CM insurance policy. We do so many surgeries, so many cases. The healthcare is one of the big plus points about Tamil Nadu as a state as a high-performing state in India and to be the least paid doctors in the entire nation after this it really hurts a lot because it is totally unfair for in no way are our PG's, the PG's of our state in no way they are working less than the PG's of other states. It is the same amount of hard work that they put and if not more because Tamil Nadu has been getting a lot of cases in both COVID and non-COVID. So in terms of performance, our PG's are in no way inferior to the PG's up north and to be paid literally half of what states like Gujarat and Delhi are being paid it really hurts us a lot and what we are asking for is not unfair. So we have two proper demands. One is a stipend height and one is a yearly percentage increase of a stipend. The yearly percentage increase is definitely paramount to our expectations because if they are going to increase a stipend height by an amount every year it won't solve the problem. If we increase the percentage by yearly it will make sure that 10 years down the line our juniors don't have to hold up placards and beg for their salary because it's going to be increased on a percentage basis with the inflation rate kept in calculation. Such protests, such demonstrations will not be necessary at all. So we really hope that the government listens to our demands and we just want a diplomatic solution for this. These resident doctors are facing many difficulties in the pandemic period. Given that they are on COVID duty they cannot go home to their families and it is the duty of the government to provide them proper accommodation. Doctors say that their accommodations lack basic facilities. Though many other states are giving perks to their PG students apparently this is not the case in Tamil Nadu. Let's learn more about the situation from the students. So a fixed time period was mentioned for which rupees 20,000 and 30,000 based on the cadre would be provided and that is actually under process and only the names and the time period where the post graduates have served has only been noted down so far and that amount has not reached anyone yet. Secondly, there is no extra allowance as such being provided for COVID duty unlike states in for example Karnataka where the interns themselves who earn a stipend of rupees 30,000 are paid a gratuity of another rupees 10,000 for their COVID duty. Our norms specify that we have to work for 8-12 hours per day actually 8 hours which can never happen anytime because if a case is sick and if the case is in my ward I have to do everything in my power to make sure the case becomes stable until then I cannot budge out of that patient's bedside. The intern is allowed to leave soon the assistant professor is allowed to leave soon the chief just has to come and show his face there whereas a PG, a post graduate has to remain with the bedside until the patient dies or until the patient gets stabilized. Number one and number two I really over the past two months we have been really trying our best to meet the government officials and raise the issues and make sure that they listen to our demands this shouldn't be the case I think there should be a proper a grievance system for doctors because we face so much pressure mental and physical pressure people keep forgetting that we are also humans we have a family to run and we have friends and family circles who keep falling ill who keep coming back to us for their opinions and suggestions and also we have to take care of them and we are also humans we also have a married life we have relations to take care of we have so many issues and we fall sick and beyond all that we have to discharge our duties as medical practitioners and in spite of all these thousand and one issues there is a stipend hike issue and this issue really opened me to the fact that if a doctor has to go and request a bed for something nobody is in a position to listen to us so there really has to be a proper a grievance system for us to voice out our grievances we are working for all 365 days the stipend hike giving around 35,000 rupees is only for 290 working days we are supposed to have a every Sunday we are supposed to get a leave and we have vacation holidays also for around 25 days we have to work only for 290 days in a year but we are working 350 days and we are available all 24 hours there is no proper time shift for us we are available for 24 hours and all 365 days but according to the MCA rule what they say is we have to work only for 290 days and in a week for maximum 48 hours and the stipend they are paying is for only that much of work that is 48 hours a week and 290 working days we are almost doing 4 times of work in case if providing us around 40,000 rupees we are doing 4 times of work we deserve around 1,200,000 rupees that's how it is in every other profession if a security guard works for 2 shifts for 2 shifts money only he won't get 1 shift money and work for 2 shifts similarly why not for doctors just because we are students we are exploited, we are made of work almost 4 times and they still pay the same 35,000 rupees to 40,000 rupees how far is it they should consider this ma'am next thing we are working in covid for more than 1 year since the start of the pandemic I am working in covid work now recently because of the recent covid case load we are unable to manage the patients now government has recently passed an order saying that they are recruiting 2,100 MBBS doctors for 50,000 rupees ma'am ma'am I have finished MBBS I have written NEET exam which is one of the most difficult exams more difficult than an IAS exam I have written that exam and I have joined the MD course and I am getting paid around 35,000 to 40,000 rupees and now they are recruiting 2,100 MBBS doctors for 50,000 rupees ma'am so what about me who is working in the same hospital for more than 1 year and getting paid less than that how far is it