Doctors in the state join anti-hartal bandwagon

THIRUVANATHAPURAM: The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has decided not to cooperate with hartals in future. IMA state secretary N Sulphi said that even though hospitals and other essential services were usually excluded from the ambit of hartals, only the emergency sections in hospitals function on hartal days.

The IMA office-bearers said that the other sections of the hospital remain dysfunctional causing a great deal of difficulty to people who want to come to hospitals on these days.

So, the IMA has decided to make all hospitals fully functional during hartal days. It would also provide transportation to the patients who are unable to reach the hospitals on hartal days, he said.

At the same time, the IMA office-bearers said that while announcing the decision to boycott hartals, they were aware of the strikes called by doctors and said that the doctors resort to strike only during extraordinary circumstances when they were being denied of their rights.

The office-bearers said that the organisation was aware that such strikes would also not be endorsed by the civil society.

The state is witnessing an anti-hartal tirade ever since the BJP decided to observe a hartal on December 14, to pay ‘homage’ to a person who had self-immolated near the BJP’s protest venue in the capital.

As many as 36 organisations including traders and transport operators in the state under Kerala Vyapari Vyavasayi Ekopana Samithi (KVVES) had decided to boycott the hartals and observe 2019 as an anti-hartal year.

An unofficial figure put the number of hartals this year so far in the state as 97, though many of them were of local ones.