The doctors’ strike that started in Kolkata earlier thisweek has now spread across India with the doctors’ association of AIIMS showingfull support to their West Bengal colleagues.
After entire healthcare system in West Bengal was crippledover the past four days, now doctors’ in Delhi, Mumbai and other cities inIndia especially AIIMS hospitals in the national capital, Raipur, Patna andPunjab are observing protest shutdown.
Resident doctors in several government hospitals in Keralaand Hyderabad also staged protests as they started their ‘cease work’demonstrations in respective cities.
Around 4,500 Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors(MARD) stopped attending to patients in all the 26 government hospitals in thestate simultaneously on Friday.
MARD General Secretary Deepak Mundhe told IANS the doctorswill keep off all routine duties between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. and the hospitaladministration has been informed to ensure all other services are not hamperedor patients inconvenienced.
A large number of doctors gathered outside the KEM Hospitalwith banners, posters to express solidarity with the doctors who were assaultedin Kolkata on Tuesday following the death of a patient in a state-run hospital.
Similar protests were also being held in Pune, Aurangabadand Nagpur by MARD members who are demanding adequate protection for theircounterparts in West Bengal.
Senior and junior resident doctors of several governmenthospitals in the national capital on Friday also went on the one day tokenstrike and boycotted work. Except for emergency services, there will be fullshutdown of all outpatient departments (OPDs), routine operation theatreservices and ward visits, the AIIMS association said.
Resident doctors at the All India Institute of MedicalSciences (AIIMS) and Safdarjung hospitals carried bandages on their heads in asymbolic protest and suspended all non-emergency services. Only follow-uppatients with a prior appointment were being registered at the OPDs.
Diagnostic services were also functioning in a restrictedmanner. Several resident doctors also held a protest at the Jantar Mantaragainst the brutal attack on a Kolkata intern.
Condemning the violence in Bengal, the AIIMS ResidentDoctors’ Association (RDA) has urged all the RDAs across the country to jointhe token strike. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has also asked membersof all its state branches to stage protests and wear black badges on Friday.
Junior doctors in West Bengal are on a strike since Tuesdayafter two of their colleagues were attacked and seriously injured at the NRSMedical College and Hospital in Kolkata.
In the wake of the strike, the AIIMS has institutedcontingency measures to take care of the admitted patients, including those inthe ICUs and wards.