Medical services were affected as doctors went on strike protesting against the proposed 27 per cent OBC quota
Medical services were affected as doctors went on strike protesting against the proposed 27 per cent OBC quota
Ginnie Mahajan/Agencies.
NEW DELHI: Medical services across the country were severely hit on Monday as doctors went on a token strike in support of the nationwide protest against the proposed reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in institutions of higher education.
Doctors took out rallies and burnt effigies of Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh at many places. Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss accused the striking doctors of playing with the lives of people and threatened to take stringent action against them.
In Delhi, Out Patient Department (OPD) services remained paralysed for the third day in almost all government hospitals including the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), University College of Medical Sciences (UCMS), Maulana Azad Medical College, Safdarjung Hospital, and Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.
That OPDs at private hospitals like Gangaram, Max healthcare, Apollo and Fortis were inoperative only made the situation worse for patients. Saturday was a gazetted holiday and OPDs were shut on Sunday. Therefore, queues at OPDs in most government hospitals were overflowing on Monday morning.
“My son has malaria and I have been getting him to the hospital for the past three days but they say doctors are on strike and since my son’s condition is not serious enough they will not look at him in the emergency. What do I do?” asked Kaamna Gupta, who had come with her five-year-old at AIIMS.
Medical services in major hospitals across Madhya Pradesh were badly hit. Major hospitals in Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Jabalpur and Rewa saw their services crippled as the doctors struck work urging political parties to make their stand clear on the proposed reservation. Emergency services, however, remained unaffected.
Medical students in three Gujarat cities joined the indefinite nationwide protests. Medical students and interns from Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot joined the strike in their campuses. Students in Ahmedabad and Jamnagar had already gone on protest on Saturday. Emergency services in hospitals across Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh were also hit as doctors, medicos and paramedical staff went on strike. Medical students and resident doctors in some areas of Rajasthan wore black armbands to express solidarity with the anti-reservation stir.
A windfall for nursing homes
Agencies.
NEW DELHI: Private nursing homes in the capital have been making windfall profits over the past few days due to the protests by medical students and junior doctors campaigning against the government's proposal to hike quotas in higher educational institutions.
Almost all the 600-odd registered private nursing homes in the national capital were full, with long waiting lists. Patients found it difficult to get admission. Hassled patients were making a beeline for private nursing homes because many of them were unable to find doctors to attend to them at the central and state government-run hospitals. In west Delhi's Care Nursing Home and Diagnostic Centre Dr Rajneesh Chadha was facing a huge rush of patients.
"A number of these patients cannot wait for surgery. So they have been coming to us for the past couple of days," the surgeon said. "Some of them told us they were turned back from government hospitals while some others become apprehensive of the ongoing stir. They were not sure of the care they could get and hence didn't go to government hospitals," Chadha said.
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