As doctors strike, services hit across nation

Even as doctors in West Bengal called off their week-long strike on Monday night after meeting with CM Mamata Banerjee, doctors with Indian Medical Association boycotted work all day to show solidarity with their colleagues in West Bengal.

Health services in public and private hospitals, especially Outpatient Departments (OPDs), were crippled across the country as doctors wore black ribbons and hetmets and formed human chains to register their protest against increasing cases of brutalities against doctors. Emergency services, however, continued to be operational.

A large number of patients and their relatives, caught unaware of the strike, were seen waiting outside various hospitals, appealing to authorities for help.

Meanwhile, doctors at the premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), who had earlier decided not to strike, too joined the stir after a doctor was allegedly manhandled by a patient’s attendants.