Govt to call army, railway docs from Wednesday

NEW DELHI: Hardening its stand against the striking medicos, Government on Tuesday announced its decision to call doctors from the army and railways and recruit new ones to maintain health services in the state-run hospitals from Wednesday.

The decision came shortly after Supreme Court expressed its displeasure over the continuance of the anti-reservation protest by the medicos and voicing concern over the plight of the people.

"We will be taking a lot of steps from tomorrow to maintain the services including new recruitments. We are going to ask Army and Railway doctors to work," Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss told reporters after a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"We are going to maintain services in the hospitals from tomorrow, come what may be," he said.

Ramadoss, however, replied in the negative when asked whether Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) would be invoked to maintain the services. "My responsibility is to maintain services", he said.