Refusing to relent to the demands of striking resident doctors of AIIMS, Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss today warned them of stringent action if they continued with their agitation.
NEW DELHI: Refusing to relent to the demands of striking resident doctors of AIIMS, Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss on Thursday warned them of stringent action if they continued with their agitation.
"If the strike continues, we will have to hire doctors on contract and we will be forced to suspend the agitating doctors," Ramadoss told a press conference here.
The three-day-old strike has severely affected patient care in the country's premier health institute.
The warning by Ramadoss came as resident doctors of AIIMS continued their strike demanding immediate issuance of degree certificates.
Warning them, he said a decision regarding the disciplinary action against the agitating doctors would be taken in the evening.
The doctors were "indulging in disrupting the patient care services", Ramadoss, who cancelled his scheduled visit to Bhutan on Thursday, said.
Refusing to take the blame for delay in issuance of the certificates, the minister said institute director P Venugopal should get the certificates "rectified immediately" so that he could affix his signature.
Ramadoss, President of AIIMS, had yesterday refused to sign the degree certificates, a demand put forward by the agitating doctors, on the ground that they had the signature of Registrar Dr Sandeep Aggarwal, whose appointment he contended was illegal.
Denying the allegations that he was delaying the issuance of certificates, Ramadoss said, the documents came to him ten days ago only.
"Those students who need the certificates immediately, may come to me with the rectified one and I will sign it immediately and the rest will get their certificates on September 25 at the convocation ceremony," he said.
Asked whether the certificates will be valid with only the signatures of Director, Registrar and Dean, he said, "the document will be invalid without the signature of the institute's president."
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