Junior doctors go on strike over assault, patients suffer

HYDERABAD: Irked by Friday night’s incident, junior doctors at Niloufer boycotted duties on Saturday, thus affecting patient services. “During my last visit I was advised to get some blood tests done and I was asked to come today. But neither the doctors nor the staff at the diagnostic centre are available. It took us an hour to find out that the diagnostic services will be shut till February 19,” said Saeeda Begum who is three months pregnant and had come from Borabanda.

Like her, many others too returned from the hospital unattended. “There is no one to tell us what to do or when to come back,” said another harried patient, Rama Devi.

Speaking about the one-day shut down, Dr PS Vijayender Goud, president of Telangana Junior Doctors’ Association said that the strike was only to reiterate the plight of doctors and highlight the need for a permanent solution: “We do not want to affect poor patients who come from far off districts to seek treatment at these tertiary care centres due to the acts of one patient’s relative. Also the solution to this problem does not lie in protests or boycotting of services. There is a need to improve primary health service that will go a long way in reducing the number of patients coming to tertiary centres. Since that is not happening the number of patients is on a constant rise, which in turn has increased the pressure on doctors.”

The junior doctors also staged a protest at the hospital that compelled the management to call for an emergency meeting to bring the situation under control. To make matters worse, outsourcing nurses too were on strike for the better part of the day, although they called it off after 3 pm. “We have called off the week-long strike after our salary for two months was cleared,” said R Narasimha, president of the Outsourcing and Private Nurses Association.