At least 120 junior doctors from Osmania General Hospital who continue to boycott elective surgeries are likely to stop attending emergency duties too from Friday if their demand for provision of elective Operation Theatres (OTs) and other resources, is not fulfilled.
Elective surgeries under the General Surgery and Orthopaedics departments of the hospital have been on hold since mid-July. The surgeries under the two departments were performed in OTs present in the hospital’s in-patient (IP) ward. After rainwater flooded the IP block on July 15, patients from other wards were shifted to other parts of the hospital. However, the elective OTs of the two departments were not accommodated. With this, elective surgeries were kept on hold, causing huge inconvenience to poor patients.
Besides, as part of their academic learning, the junior doctors have to perform surgeries too. They have lost this opportunity from July fourth week.
The Telangana Junior Doctors Association-Osmania Medical College (TJUDA-OMC) unit submitted representations to the hospital administration and senior officials in the Health department from third week of August. While the hospital superintendent B. Nagender issued orders to accommodate General Surgery elective OT in Cardio Thoracic OT, the issue remained unresolved.
After servicing strike notice, the first ones to boycott elective duties from Tuesday were 120 junior doctors from General Surgery department. They were joined by 60 post graduate students from Orthopaedics department from Wednesday. Some more might join in the coming days.
Digging their heels in
While the General Surgery post graduate students said that they will boycott emergency duties from Friday if the demands are not addressed, the others said they will stick to only boycotting elective duties. “We will boycott elective duties till the issues are addressed,” said P. Rohith, president of the TJUDA-OMC unit.