Back to work: Postgraduate doctor salaries tripled

Six-day student strike ends with administration caving in to doctors’ demands.

HYDERABAD:

The postgraduate doctors of Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, Jamshoro have won the battle for higher salaries after a six-day boycott.

The administration announced an unconditional increment that triples their current stipend, after a meeting with PG student representatives on Tuesday.

“The vice-chancellor, Prof. Dr Noshad Shaikh, has announced that their stipend will be increased from Rs12,000 to Rs42,500 per month,” read a statement issued to the media. “This historic decision was made in the interest of poor patients who have been suffering due to the strike.”

Dr Zulfiqar Zahoor, who led the PG doctors at the meeting, told The Express Tribune that they will be paid the new salary with effect from November.

“The university had given similar assurances several times in the past but this time the word comes without ‘unacceptable’ conditions,” he said, referring to a previous arrangment which said their thesis synopsis needed to be approved before they could be paid.

About 276 PGs will benefit from the decision. Dr Haresh, one of them, said that the Sindh government will have to ensure it does not renege on the decision. “The provincial government had approved a stipend for only 122 PG doctors when LUMHS was a college,” he explained. “But when it was upgraded to a university, the number of PG doctors grew to over 270.”

The vice-chancellor has appealed to the government to increase the number of PG students and also to pay diploma students stipends. For this month, the university will pay Rs8.5 million in stipends from its budget till the provincial government sends the funding.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2011.