Trainee resident medical officers (RMO) of the Bangladesh Institute of Research and Rehabilitation in Diabetes, Endocrine and Metabolic Disorders (Birdem) have gone on a strike from Sunday demanding job stability, disbursement of full salaries and Covid-19 safety equipment.
On Monday, the hospital authorities issued a notice stating if the trainee doctors did not join their workplace within 24 hours of the issuance of the notice, their jobs, which are temporary in the first place, would be terminated.
Coming to know of the notice, the agitating doctors went for protests at the hospital premises from 8am till 2pm on Tuesday.
The protesting doctors said that there was no mention of a trainee position in their recruitment notice, and that they had applied for the posts of RMO. Only when they joined the hospital did they come to know about the training.
Seeking anonymity, a trainee physician said some of them had been working in this post for as long as four years, and the training period is still ongoing.
The authorities did not follow any rules in giving salaries or allowances; they had also been reducing salaries without any prior notice, one trainee doctor said.
There are 90 such trainee doctors working at Birdem.
Another trainee doctor said the authorities had set the condition that their training would be evaluated every six months, which was a complex process.
During the training period, they were also sent to different medical camps outside Dhaka.
However, joining medical camps was not the job of an RMO. Moreover, the hospital did not provide adequate allowances for travel, accommodation and meals, complained another trainee.
The protestors also complained that they had been working at risk to their lives without proper safety equipment.