Memorandum to Director

Dear Friends,
As per decision taken in our last meeting with the director, in the presence of all HODs, we have given the following memorandum to the director. He has promised that he will discuss these issues in the governing body meeting and will try to solve it as soon as possible. We have deliberately focused on the arrears issue in this memorandum.

From:-

The Resident Doctors

Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology

Medical College PO

Thiruvananthapuram 695011

To:-

The Director,

Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology

Medical College PO

Thiruvananthapuram 695011

Respected Sir, December 24, 2008

Sub: Memoranda seeking payment of financial arrears accruing from the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission

1. We, the resident doctors of the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology are salaried employees of the Institute were drawing remuneration in the pay scale Rs 10000-325-10975 (pre-revised). In accordance with the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission (and of the precedent in the Institute whereby the pay fixation of academic staff working in the Institute is on the pattern of other autonomous institutions of similar character, viz. All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, the Post Graduate Institute of Medical education and Research, Chandigarh etc) our pay has been kindly revised to the scale Rs 15600-39100 with the effect from November 1, 2008.

2. The recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission are applicable from 01-01-2006, the Institute has for its other employees paid partial arrears on account of this on December 23, 2008 (vide P & A. 1/X/24/SCTIMST/2008 dated 25.11.2008). Your kind attention is drawn to the Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) rules 2008 whereby all civil appointees whose pay is debitable to the Civil Estimates are eligible to receive both enhanced pay and arrears in pay with the effect from 01.01.2006 (para 2, section 1, CCS (Revised Pay) rules 2008. The Gazette of India no 470, 29/08/08, pp31). In further explication of these orders as applied to the autonomous institutes under ambit the Government of India has clearly mandated that these bodies are required to adopt the revised pay structure as stipulated in Section I and II of Part A of the First Schedule of the Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules 2008. (Ref no 7/23/2008-E III (A) dated 07/10/2008, enclosed).

3. And, whereas the Institute has for other categories of staff implemented partial payment of areas on December 23, 2008, it has withheld payment of due arrears in pay to us. We humbly state that the Institute is outside powers to partially implement the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules 2008 for some sections of its employees. We have been legally advised that this is also a violation of our rights as citizens of India to be treated equally before the law as guaranteed by Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

4. We, therefore humbly request the Institute to expeditiously pay the arrears that accrue to us in accordance with the above. This memorandum is without prejudice to our legal rights, individually and severally, to seek appropriate judicial remedy for the payment of such arrears and financial compensation for the undue delay in their payment by the Institute.

Kindly return a copy of this memorandum in acknowledgement of receipt.

Thanking You,

Yours sincerely

Resident doctors of SCTIMST (signatures appended as annexure 1-6)

Update on current proceedings

Dear Friends,
We are planning to meet the director latest by 13th (Saturday) and then we shall decide our future course of action. Today our representatives had a meeting with Prof. Radhakrishnan and he had agreed to the cause of our agitation. He is going to meet the director tommorrow on this issue. We have forwarded the following mail to him.

Respected Sir,
Thank you for your support and concern for our cause. After your meeting with our representatives, we have decided to meet the director again in your presence. With the chance of general elections being declared early, we are worried that the process may be delayed indefinitely because of election commission restrictions. Moreover, even the new salary is still to be declared for the residents, which adds to our anxiety. We have deep belief and faith in you and other HODs to resolve this issue in a fruitful manner and in a reasonable time frame. For these reasons we request you to arrange a meeting with the director and our representatives in presence of YOU and available HODs, latest by 13.12.08 (Saturday).
Sir, this is not a demand but an earnest request to our most sincere wellwisher.
With deep regards,
Resident doctors of SCTIMST.

Our response to Prof. Suresh Nair

Respected Sir,

We appreciate your concern and efforts for our cause. We beg to differ on the following issues mentioned in your letter.
1. Arrear dues and salaries for the residents are not dependent on income generated by the institute. It is similar to other central institutes like AIIMS or PGI here. A total demand for budget is sent to DST after calculating the internal fund generation. Hence the money payable to residents is not calculated separately. We got these informations from the FA and we were further informed that the fund for arrears of this instutute had already arrived.

2. Although not mentioned in this letter, the logic of "precedence" has been raised umpteen times against the payment of arrear dues to us. We would like to remind that we already received an arrear in April, 2008 (DA) like other employees. Hence we are ipso facto eligible for this arrear also .

We would like to reiterate the fact that our emotions are not hurt because we are not getting the arrears. It is because the way the administration ignored and dismissed our rights.

With due regards,
Resident Doctors .

Responses so far - 3

Dear Residents
I am currently not in Kerala and was shocked and dismayed reading your
mail. I can fully empathize with your disappointment that you do not
get he privileges that residents at AIIMS and and PGI get and also the
financial demands that you all face, like all of us who have stayed
from the lure of highly lucrative jobs to work in a place like SCT
which we respect and admire and serve.
All of us have gone through residency days and through lots of
hardships and have felt that no one else works as much as residents.
After these few years of struggle you will also be in the position of
consultants and realize that at that level it is not hard long hours
in the ward, but a different kind of responsibility that you handle
and for that the remuneration as a full time job is different.
I have always maintained that patient care and academic atmosphere of
any dept is only as good as its residents and their committment and
have always strived to drive home this point, at my own personal
peril. No one denies that you all form the core around which hospital
services revolve, and that should be recognized and appreciated when
it meets the high standards that are expected.
It is true that SCt isnt like PGI or AIIMS which are fully funded by
the govt. Things work differerently and there are means of getting
your grievances heard and this is not something that one can solve in
a day. You can put in your representation and take it up once again
and through proper channels and all of us faculty will support your
cause.
It is not advisable to bring bad reputation to this institute by
thoughtless actions taken in the heat of the moment. It takes years of
hard work of a a lot of people to build a good reputation and just a
day to ruin it all. You all will leave in pursuit of your lives but
many of us continue to work here and will have to live with the
damages done over something that can be resoved in better ways. You
all could have approached the heads of depts, dean etc and discussed
before resorting to this extreme measure of maligning an institute and
its highest position.
I request that the residents meet with their HODs, discuss the issue
and resolve it in a better way. Character assasination and mud
slinging have a way of coming back to haunt us, if it isnt done for
the right cause.
There are better ways of problem solving and so please calm your
nerves and sit down with senior faculty and get your grievances
represented to the DST.
Wish you all good luck. I just hope the damages that have been wreaked
until now will not affect the prestige of teh institute or the
rightful cause that you have undertaken. Good luck and assuring all
support.

Asha Kishore

Responses so far - 2

Dear residents,

Even though I could meet only neurosurgical residents and appraised them of the difficulties administration is facing presently regarding your arrears issue, I do echo the words of Prof.Radhakrishnan and request you not to get emotional and stop doing anti-institutional activities. We will try our level best to settle this issue once all the HOD's meet and furthur discussions with the director. I request you all to apologise to the director for the e mails you have written and again request him to get special grants from DST for your arrears as he is helpless presently because the salary for the residents is generated by the institute and doesnot come as a grant from DST as for other employees and unless institute has enough generated funds, these arrears cannot be paid back dated. We will try our level best to solve the crisis

Sincerely yours

Suresh Nair,

Professor & Head of Neurosurgery

Respones so far

Dear Students,

As promised, I met the Director today morning to update him in detail about the meeting we had yesterday. Dr. Tharaka, Dean, is away to Chennai, and shall be back only on Sunday evening. I shall talk to him upon his return.

Director promised to consider all the options, after getting feed back from other HODs.

In the mean time, I ask you to stop all organizational or anti-institutional activities, including sending emails etc. Let us give time to the Administration to reconsider the earlier decision. Till then, if you antagonize the administaration, you will loose support from most of the HODs.

Provisionally, a meeting of your representatives along with HODs with the Director is planned for Dec 20th, Saturday. The delay is because of the exams and nonavailabilty of some of the HODs on Dec 13th.

With best wishes,
Sincerely,
Dr.K. Radhakrishnan, MD, DM, FAMS, FAAN

Senior Professor & Head,

Department of Neurology,

Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST),

Trivandrum - 695 011, Kerala, India.

Phone: 91-471-2524282

Fax : 91-471-2446433

E-mail : krk@sctimst.ac.in

or

kurupath.radhakrishnan@gmail.com

We have, as you are aware, written to the Minister for Science and Technology, eminent medical teachers and the highest political leadership in the country. We have no response from anybody. The Director of our Institute has so far refused to accept memoranda or issue minutes of his meeting with postdoctoral resident doctors on the evening of 02/12/2008. We are therefore impelled to clear the air and furnish you with a transcript of his conversation with us. Of course, given the fact that a fifty odd relatively impoverished postdoctoral students have no chance against mighty individuals, we only seek to draw the attention of the nation to how it generally treats intellectual talent, about how it cares little about the perpetual evaporation of its creme de la creme. As a group of individuals out at sea we cry out to you in hope. We will seek to engage the media, interested intellectuals in our battle to preserve the sanctity of our last bastions of talent.

Below is an illustrative transcript of how the Director of one of the country's institutes of national importance speaks to his students/ residents:
Date: December 2nd, 2008.
Time: 4.00 PM

1. Director of SCTIMST: 'Why do you need money? Have you come here to learn or earn money?'

All postgraduate students are issued a letter of appointment to service. Most are currently in the age group of 28- 33 years and have dependent parents and a family to look after. The average income of the educated class in India seems to have grown phenomenally in the last decade. Our incomes have last changed more than a decade ago. In the last decade our parents have not aged, retired or fallen sick. We are not entitled as individuals to start families and support parents.

2. 'You are not money minting machines like NGOs'

If being paid for working 365 days a year (less 30 days of casual leave) amounts to money minting this is indeed a sorry state of affairs. We very often do continuous 36 hour work shifts (which incidentally the Institute's appointment letter states will not exceed twelve hours at a stretch subject to the exigencies of work). Apparently the exigencies of work are perpetual. According to the Director, the Institute has to charge its patients significantly higher amounts just to mobilise funds to pay its residents. For the others, NONE of whom work more than 6-12 hours at a stretch there is no problem with funding. It seems inherent in the unwritten laws of the land that those who work the most are the least deserving to be remunerated.

3. This is not All India Institute or PGI. If you don't like it here you can take your certificates and go there...

All residents appointed by the Institute come through a well regarded national level entrance examination. They are probably among the best trainee doctors in the nation. The Director of SCTIMST who is an eminent figure thinks his trainees have no lien on their Institute which functions in the public domain and is supposed to be answerable to the nation. It now seems to function like the personal fiefdom of an individual.

4. I will pay you from November on compassionate grounds.

Who is the Director showing compassion to? A group of individuals who are money minting machines out to earn a fast buck in a national institute or the proverbial rich man paying the indigent alms? In our understanding, the Sixth Pay Commission is a statutory body and its recommendations have been accepted for implementation in autonomous institutions under the Government of India with effect from 01/01/2006. SCTIMST is an autonomous institute which has committed to implement these recommendations vide P&A1/X/24/ SCTIMST 2008. The said circular commits to implement recommendations for academic staff based on the pattern of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. Ipso facto residents do not qualify to be designated 'academic staff'. Their rights and privileges issue not from statute but from an individual benefactor.

5. Do whatever you can do...

This is how a civilised nation treats its postdoctoral students. It somehow seems to mean that this is a group of people with no voice, second class citizenry of some other world. Who can blame them to aspire for membership of other worlds?! - The Resident Doctors of SCTIMST.

Sorry state of affairs at the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram

To, 2nd December 2008
Shri Kapil Sibal,
The Hon'ble Union Minister of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences,
Government of India,
New Delhi.

Respected Sir,

We, the resident doctors of the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram have been constrained to write to you about the sorry state of affairs currently prevailing in the Institute due to the whims of a particular individual. We consider ourselves very fortunate in being given an opportunity to work and learn in an Institute of this caliber. We have over time begun to feel that we do not have a mechanism to ventilate and redress our problems in the Institute. However with the recent autocratic decision taken by the Director to not implement the Sixth Pay commission recommendations for resident doctors, especially the due arrears, we feel impelled to approach the highest levels of government in order to preserve the character and rich traditions of this Institute.
.

The Sixth Pay commission has in conjunction with its recommendations for other government employees revised pay package for resident doctors working in institutions under the Government of India. These have already been implemented at other medical institutions of national importance such as the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. We have brought this to the attention of the academic division of the Institute including the Director. Despite repeated personal assurances the pay commission recommendations have been implemented for all employees other than resident doctors. On more than one occasion the administration has in fact taken umbrage that we have chosen to take this issue up in the first place. At our meeting with the Director on 02/12/2008 we were subject to immense humiliation. You would appreciate that we entered the portals of this hallowed institution through a national competitive examination. It is only natural that the institution has inbuilt safeguards against the whims and fancies of individuals.
As individuals who have now more than ten years of medical education behind them we have increasing family commitments which involve substantial financial outlay. As such our current levels of pay are inadequate in relation to meeting basic needs. Since other medical institutions within the country have implemented the recommendations of the pay commission we feel the lack of response on the part of the administration at Sree Chitra is in violation of the principles of natural justice.

Further illustration of the absolute callousness with which its current head administers the institute are furnished below for your kind information

Residents do not enjoy medical benefits. In fact, Sree Chitra has the dubious reputation of charging even its own residents for medical benefits availed at the Institute, a practice that would put even private medical hospitals to shame.

We have brought the kind attention of the Director of the Institute that resident doctors in the Institute do not have a book allowance. This is again disparate to the practice at All India Institute and the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh.
.
The canteen facility at the Institute is abysmal with inconvenient timings. Most residents work 12- 14 hour days and often 36 hours at a stretch. We do so with the belief that as young individuals the Institute offers us unique opportunities in learning and also that we have an opportunity to further the highest levels of clinical care that our founder Director envisioned. We do however think that it is incumbent on the administration to work out mechanisms to address basic needs such as an appropriate eating facility.
In an era driven by information technology the Institute does not have access to electronic libraries- AIIMS , PGIMER and even state health administrations have taken innovative steps to provide these facilities to medical students. Library timings are often inappropriate and library facilities are grossly under-utilised.
The Institute has not formulated a uniform requirement for award of its postdoctoral degrees. Individual departments have a roughly hewn programme to encourage student research but there is neither funding nor initiative at the Institutional level.

We believe that as the Institute prepares to change hands, these issues be brought to the attention of the highest levels of governance within the Institute. It does not need too much observational acumen to see how India’s public health system is repeatedly deserted by its brightest students. It is only probable that the administration of these Institutes of otherwise unimaginable potential is largely responsible, failing the nations’ brightest minds and the society at large. It is also unfortunate that a single individual can brazenly vitiate the harmonious relationship between teachers and students in a unique institution. We therefore pray that you initiate urgent action to prevent further deterioration in the working atmosphere at the Institute.

Thanking you,
Yours sincerely

Postdoctoral resident doctors of SCTIMST, Thiruvananthapuram.



Cc
1. The Hon’ble President of India
2. The Hon’ble Prime Minister of India
3. Shri Lal Krishna Advani, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha
4. Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha
5. The Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India
6. Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India
7. Dr RK Srivastava, Director General Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt of India
8. Dr EP Yashodharan, Exec Vice President KSCSTE
9. Dr. Baldev Raj, Director IGCAR
10. Dr. K A Dinshaw, Director Tata Memorial Hospital Mumbai
11. The Director, SCTIMST
12. Dr MS Valiathan , National Research Professor
13. Dr GS Bhuvaneshwar, Head BMT Wing SCTIMST
14. Prof R Sankar Kumar, Prof Dept of CVTS, SCTIMST.