Central Government has constituted a Committee to examine various aspects of a uniform legislative framework to address issues of assault on clinical establishments and doctors on duty.
As per Constitutional provisions, ‘Health’ is a State subject. It is the primary responsibility of the respective State / Union Territory (UT) Government to prescribe norms for fixing working hours for the doctors and other medical practitioners working in their hospitals. As such, no information in this regard is centrally maintained.
As far as three Central Government hospitals namely Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, Safdarjung Hospital, Lady Harding Medical College & Associated Hospitals and All India Medical Institute of Sciences, New Delhi are concerned, the working hours for doctors and other medical practitioners normally do not exceed 40 hours per week. However, the duty timing and working hours of doctors and medical practitioners are guided by exigencies of the work and factors, such as emergency duty, patient load, etc.
Further, adequate residents/doctors are available in these Central government hospitals to provide due care to the patient. As and when there is an increase in workload necessitating an increase in the number of doctors, new posts are created to ensure that required manpower is available to deliver the desired level of clinical care.
The Minister of State (Health and Family Welfare), Sh Ashwini Kumar Choubey stated this in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.
[Press Release dt. 16-07-2019]
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare