Govt commits to HCMS Demands, avoids impending doctors’ strike

The Haryana Civil Medical Services Association (HCMS), a body representing government doctors, announced on Monday that the state government has agreed to some of their demands and given positive assurance about the rest.
The doctors’ body expressed hope for a positive outcome regarding all their demands, including the formation of a specialist cadre for doctors, a reduction in the bond amount for postgraduate courses, a dynamic assured career progression (ACP) scheme at par with central government doctors, and no direct recruitment of senior medical officers (SMOs).

A senior HCMS office-bearer stated that they had a marathon meeting on Monday evening with health department officials, including the Additional Chief Secretary (Health) and Director General of Health Services. In support of their demands, government doctors in Haryana went on a daylong strike on Friday, the second time in a week, impacting outpatient department (OPD) services in some hospitals. “We had a positive meeting today, which lasted for two and a half hours,” said HCMS general secretary Dr. Anil Yadav. “We were assured that two demands will be fulfilled very soon. One is that the bond amount will be reduced to Rs 50 lakh from Rs 1 crore, and a file in this regard will be moved soon.

The second demand pertains to the stoppage of direct recruitment of the SMOs. Earlier, the department was not agreeing that direct recruitment of SMOs should be stopped. Today, we have been given to understand this demand will now be met, and service rules in this regard would be amended.”

Regarding their demand on the direct recruitment of SMOs, he said, “Medical officers are not being recruited to SMOs because there is another lateral entry of direct SMOs, so in that way, 25 percent of the posts of SMOs were blocked.

If those seats are converted to seniority posts, more seats of SMOs will be available for promotion on a seniority basis. Regarding the two other demands, these will be taken up in the presence of the Additional Chief Secretary (Finance) and also involve Health Minister Anil Vij. We were told that soon a meeting with the health minister will be arranged in this regard. So, we are hopeful of fruitful results,” Yadav said.
Referring to the specialist cadre demand, he said, “We had submitted some relevant documents to the health department, and they will go through and look into its feasibility.

As our talks with the government are still going on, and another round would be held soon, after all rounds are over, only then can we conclude what shall be the outcome,” he said when asked what will be their next move now. The doctors’ body had last week threatened to launch an indefinite strike and shut down all services if their demands were not met soon.