New Delhi: For Hari, a 27-year-old resident doctor at Hindu Rao Hospital, paying the hostel fee has become difficult, where he has to lend money from his friends. Hari like many others has not been paid three months of salary. "I have been working at Hindu Rao since it became a Covid dedicated hospital. We are not being paid for four months and this is our basic human right and I need to pay my room rent. I cant ask my family for money at this age. I cant afford loan and despite following all the protocol of speaking to authorities no action has been taken," Hari who held "salary is our basic right" poster at Jantar Mantar told Millennium Post. At a time when healthcare workers are at the forefront of the pandemic, they are forced to protest at Jantar Mantar demanding the release of their pending salaries. Resident doctors from Hindu Rao, Kasturba Gandhi and Rajan Babu Hospital, which comes under North MCD, protested against the non-payment of their salaries. Healthcare workers at Hindu Rao have already been protesting at the hospital for almost a week and have suspended all operations except emergency services. President of Resident Doctors Association at Hindu Rao said that this is not a recent scenario, but a persistent situation. "We have been forced to come at Jantar Mantar and protest because despite writing to the authorities, we havent been provided with a fixed solution. Not even a comfortable solution has been given to us, which is why we have gathered here, all MCD run hospitals, in solidarity with each other over the issue." Recently, MCD released one months salary for all the health workers at MCD run hospital for the month of June, which they say is not the solution. Sunil Kumar, president of RDA at Kasturba Gandhi said, "Our demand is a permanent solution because this issue has been going on for the last 4-5 years. If we dont protest then our normal salaries dont come as well and we are forced to come and protest here. Despite Supreme Court guidelines on healthcare workers salary no action has been taken by the MCD." Along with resident doctors, nurses, sanitation workers and senior doctors are also standing in solidarity. From October 19, senior doctors from North MCD run hospitals will start their indefinite protest. President of AIIMS RDA Dr Adarsh Pratap Singh also came in solidarity with the resident doctors and said this is a disgusting state of health structure that Covid warriors instead of working in the hospital are on the roads demanding their salary. "We will not stop protesting till the basic rights of healthcare workers are provided to them. As RDA AIIMS we also wrote to union health ministry and chief minister office to the condition of healthcare workers in the national Capital, which is pathetic and government cannot ignore this, especially at a time when there is a pandemic going on," he told Millennium Post. Meanwhile, Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA) also came out in solidarity with the covid warriors. "It is a sad state to see healthcare workers leaving their jobs to ask for their salary, which is their basic right. We stand in solidarity with our resident doctors and will protesting till a permanent solution is not provided," FORDA president Dr Shivaji Burman said.

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