A health worker takes a break in front of a fan in New Delhi, August 2020. Photo: Reuters Even before COVID-19, protests by health workers in India were on the rise. According to one database, India had the most such protests in 85 countries between March 2019 and 2020. Most of them concerned unpaid salaries, poor management, contracts and regularisation, and patient overload, followed by protests around lack of supplies and equipment. Health workers have often faced uphill battles in having their demands met – but the underlying problem has been a lack of attention to health workers’ basic needs. One of the biggest casualties of the governance problems were medical entrance exams – a sphere in which NEET replaced the erstwhile faulty system with new problems. By now, many have watched the dramatic footage of junior doctors and police clashing in New Delhi or heard about ongoing demonstrations by resident doctors around India. These events have been taking place against the b...
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