“When will we learn the skills of treating non-COVID patients? Non-COVID patients stopped turning towards tertiary care centres run by Government and those of us have opted surgery have not touched a single tool of surgery. How will we survive after completion of three years of Post Graduation is our main concern.” These are some of the issues being faced by Resident Doctors working in Government Medical College and Hospitals (GMCHs) across Maharashtra. They have been demanding to find out ways to tackle the situation so that their learning horizon could be expanded. But Government has failed to pay heed to their issues. Now, the residents have warned Government that if it failed to provide solution soon, they would launch strike in all Government Medical Colleges across Maharashtra. President of Nagpur Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) Dr Arpit Dhakate has expressed concern while talking to ‘The Hitavada’, “We are going through a very bad phase.

 

When we see ourselves after three years where we will be, the thought of imagination scares us. There will be no scope of honing our skills. The situation is not only bad for us but for public also. There will be doctors out after PG who will not be able to treat non-COVID patients, who will not be able to perform general surgeries, orthopaedic ones etc. It will be a futile exercise. Shockingly GMCs have no more remained the teaching institute.” All the Residents are working almost 24 hours without a single leave. In the letter that was submitted by MARD to respective Deans of GMCs and Director, says, ‘The COVID 19 pandemic caught us all off-guard in the year 2020, and the entire medical fraternity had to stand together to fight it. Residents (medical postgraduates) training to specialise in various different fields, also joined, irrespective of their specialty. In fact, in Government teaching hospitals, these residents formed the backbone of the COVID task force. It is now time for a planned, systematic response and not makeshift solutions. However, that is not the case. As was prevalent last year, organisational failures abound.’

 

The letter further says, ‘The NMC, and the Government have failed to identify and provide COVID treatment facilities and therefore the onus lies on premier teaching institutes like GMC. These institutions are supposed to be Centers of learning where patients get the highest standard of care, and medical Post Graduate students are trained to be future specialists. However, because the Government is unable to come up with a response system for COVID in spite of the experience of last year, two groups of people must suffer. One, patients who have diseases other than COVID, such long-standing malignancies and other illnesses requiring elective procedures that are nevertheless troubling. Delay in treatment can also lead to unnecessary complications. Because more and more beds are being allotted to COVID patients, these patients who look to GMC for treatment are being turned away.

 

The second group are the residents themselves, who instead of training in their chosen specialties have dedicated one year of their intense training to treating COVID patients. It is our opinion that alternate arrangements must be made. NMC and the State Government should be making arrangements for COVID facilities outside of the teaching hospitals as well, so as to ensure that patient care is not hampered, and the education of future specialists of this country is not affected.’ MARD has warned, “If our requests are not considered and if the scenario repeats wherein the residents have to face the whole brunt of the situation then we would be left with no choice but to withdraw services in Non-COVID and Emergency and go on an indefinite strike. If no further actions are taken even then, we would withdraw our services from COVID duties also.’