‘Ensure 8-hr cap on duty time for PG docs, interns’

Merely because government hospitals and medical colleges may not be adequately staffed, the authorities cannot make postgraduate medical students or undergraduate interns work additional hours, said the Madras High Court. It then directed the Directorate of Medical Education (DME) to monitor the situation and ensure they served only the prescribed eight hours.

The first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice PD Audikesavalu made the observation while disposing of a plea that sought the strict implementation of a notification of July 9, 2015, issued by the Directorate to provide for eight hours’ duty per day on a shift basis to postgraduate medical students and undergraduate compulsory rotatory residential internship (CRRI) candidates at State-run hospitals and medical colleges.

“There is no doubt that the provisions of the notification may have been breached during an emergency that arose during both the first surge of the pandemic and the deadlier second wave,” the court said.

“However, the official respondents say that from or about February, there has been no violation and committees have been set up for individual complaints to be lodged before such committees in case a particular student has had to devote more than eight hours per day,” the bench recorded while noting that in the light of this, the petition appeared to have served its purpose.

The petitioner, Dr. GR Ravindranath of Doctors’ Association for Social Equality, sought to provide 8-hour duty with a shift system to PG students and UG CRRI candidates in all medical colleges and hospitals.