On Day 3, protesters resume duty, call off strike.
With the high court (HC) pulling up striking resident doctors and the state government officials threatening to invoke Maharashtra Essential Services Maintenance Act (MESMA), 2011, cracks in their statewide indefinite mass bunk finally appeared with the Pune faction calling off the strike.
Two-thirds of the striking doctors resumed duties by Thursday morning and the remaining protesters followed suit by evening, thereby officially calling off the strike in the city.
The decision came after HC told the striking doctors to return to work in the interest of patients or face action under MESMA.
“We have two reasons for calling off the strike, the first is the HC order and since BJ Medical College is a tertiary care centre, an extended mass bunk would adversely affect the patients,” said Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) general secretary (Pune unit) Dr Shashikant Swamy.
He said that resident doctors would, however, wear black badges as a symbol of protest as MARD members in other cities are continuing the strike.
Meanwhile, hospital authorities said that the situation returned to normalcy on Thursday itself as nearly 60% resident doctors had joined back work.
“In many departments like surgery, paediatric, ENT, psychiatry, anesthesia, etc., mostly all the residents have returned to work. While in medicine and gynaecology departments, at least 50% resident doctors have resumed duties. Hence, the hospital work is going on as per schedule since senior doctors are pitching in for hospital duties as well. In fact, even planned surgeries that had got affected were carried out today,” medical superintendent Dr DG Kulkarni said.
As talks between the state government authorities and striking doctors failed on Thursday, medical education minister Vijay Kumar Gavit had asked college authorities to send
expulsion letters to striking doctors and ask them to vacate hostels.
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