Services at public hospitals may be hit as resident docs to go back on strike

Services at public hospitals may be hit as resident docs to go back on strike

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi:  17.12.2021

Patient services at Delhi’s leading public hospitals, including Safdarjung, Ram Manohar Lohia, and Lok Nayak, are likely to be seriously affected on Friday. This is because the resident doctors, who are the backbone of healthcare services in these medical institutions, have decided to withdraw from all services, including elective surgeries and trauma care, to protest the delay in NEET-PG counselling.

Only the faculty members, senior doctors, will be available to man the OPDs and other critical services at the hospitals.

“We do not want to inconvenience patients. That’s why we suspended our protest for a week and requested the government to take necessary action to expedite NEET-PG. But nothing has been done so far and, therefore, we are forced to take this step,” the resident doctors said.

On Wednesday, the Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association of India had written to union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya to inform him about their planned agitation.

“With the threat of a third wave of Covid-19 pandemic looming large, the best the authorities could have done was to expedite the counselling and subsequent admission process. Instead, there is inaction and a lack of urgency in the matter. Hence, as informed earlier, resident doctors are left with no choice, but to go for withdrawal from all services in healthcare institutions from December 17 onwards,” FORDA said.

Resident doctors have been protesting since last month over the issue of delay in NEET-PG counselling.

They claim healthcare institutions across the country were running short of an adequate workforce of resident doctors, with no admission in the current academic year yet. “With the possibility of future Covid-19 pandemic waves looming large, the situation will be disastrous for the healthcare sector with its bearing on the country’s population,” the doctors say.