Karnataka doctors' strike: CM Siddaramaiah to chair meeting on Thursday evening

BELAGAVI: Chief minister Siddaramaiah and health minister Ramesh Kumar will chair a meeting on Thursday evening to arrive at a solution for the ongoing agitation by private doctors.

As the stand-off between the government and the doctors stepped into its fourth day on Thursday, opposition leader Jagadish Shettar raised the issue during zero hour in the winter session of the Legislative Assembly and accused the government of being insensitive towards the general public. Shettar said that the government seemed hell-bent to bring amendments to the KPME Act despite not arriving at a consensus in the joint select committee discussion.

Seeking details on precautions taken by the government to face challenges faced due to the strike, the BJP leader pressed for an immediate solution for the problem instead of the government making it a prestige issue.

In his long reply, health minister Ramesh Kumar defended the government's stance and said that any progressive legislation would certainly have a lot of objections and the government was ready to clear all those through talks. However, even he questioned the legitimacy of agitation by the doctors and said that the government has gone out of the way in getting their grievances redressed.

The minister accepted that the government was dependent on private hospitals for secondary and tertiary care but said that any negotiation at gunpoint was not possible.