Doctors of North Delhi Municipal Corporation-run hospitals call off strike

NEW DELHI:  Doctors of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation-run hospitals who have been agitating for the last 24 days over their pending salaries called off their strike on Wednesday after receiving their dues of four months. Five resident doctors of Hindu Rao Hospital had been sitting on a relay hunger strike since Friday.

On Wednesday evening, North civic body Mayor Jai Prakash and chairman of its standing committee Chhail Bihari Goswami visited the Hindu Rao Hospital to meet the protesting doctors. The mayor then offered juice to the doctors to break their hunger strike.  At the last meeting held between the doctors and civic body authorities, the commissioner has agreed for timely disbursement of salaries of all doctors every month in the future. It was also decided that the “strike period” of the doctors, including seniors, to be considered ‘on duty’ for all purposes.

“As per the desired meeting under the chairmanship of the commissioner, our issues were earnestly addressed and affirmed. As per the minutes of the meeting undersigned by the additional commissioner, we would like to suspend our ongoing strike till all salaries are created to all the resident doctors as discussed between the MCDA and RDA. We are thankful to the mayor for hearing our plead urgently and working towards ensuring us with an immediate disbursement of salaries,” Dr Abhimanyu Sardana, president, Hindu Rao Hospital RDA, said in a statement. 

On Tuesday night, the civic body had released the salary up to September. The resident doctors of Hindu Rao Hospital had started their protest on October 5 which was then joined by other healthcare workers from MCD-run hospitals. The Resident Doctors’ Associations of centrally-run and state-operated hospitals and the IMA had also extended their support to the movement.