Junior doctors irked by move to increase retirement age

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The LDF decision to request the government to increase the retirement age of doctors in the medical education and health service has not gone down well with the doctors’ community, especially the junior doctors.

Any attempt to increase the retirement age of doctors is going to affect the promotional opportunities of the junior doctors in both the sectors. “We had always objected to the extension. Already the doctors in the medical education service are stagnated due to the delay in promotions,” said Dr Kavitha Ravi, state president of Kerala Government Medical College Teachers’ Association (KGMCTA).

The LDF’s decision is to increase the retirement age of health service doctors to 60 years from 56 and that of medical college doctors to 62 from 60. However, in the health service, the retirement age of those who have joined after the introduction of the contributory pension scheme in 2013 is already 60 years. Hence here the benefit of extension will be only for those who are in service before 2013.

“But the nub of the matter is that promotions in the health service are not happening for the past four-five years. The retirement posts of 2011 are still remaining vacant in the health service in addition to the specialist doctor posts,” said Dr A K Raoof, state secretary of Kerala Government Medical Officers Association (KGMOA).

About 150 posts which have left vacant after retirement still remain so in the health service due to the delay in giving the promotions. “There is an inordinate delay in convening the department-level promotion committee to finalize the promotions and hence several doctors, especially in the junior cadre, have been severely affected with this,” said Dr Raoof.

The issue in the medical education sector is that any extension would deny the junior doctors their promotion. “If it is a political decision, we will demand the government to create more posts to promote and post those who would be denied promotion due to the extension,” said Dr Kavitha Ravi.