The Hindu : Karnataka News : Patients left in the lurch

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Wednesday, Nov 12, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Patients left in the lurch

Staff Correspondent

KOLAR: The agitation by medical and non-medical staff of government hospitals in the State has cast its shadow in Kolar district with many patients at the Sri Narasimha Raja District Hospital here being left in the lurch.

As most of the doctors and other staff reportedly have gone to Bangalore to participate in the dharna in front of the office of Commissioner of Health and Family Welfare, work at the hospital has been affected severely.

While the out-patient department has not functioned since Monday, only a few staff, including District Surgeon Srinivasan, were present in the hospital.

Some of them attended on patients in the wards.

Venkatesh, a resident of Hudukul village in the taluk, who had come to the hospital to get treatment for fever, fainted on the hospital premises as no staff in the hospital cared to attend on him.

Likewise, Varalakshmamma, who brought her two-month-old infant, had to return as no child specialist was present in the hospital, it was said.

Emergency services were not hit by the agitation, Dr. Srinivasan said.

Doctors and other staff are demanding parity in salaries of medical and non-medical staff and regularisation of contract doctors, among other things.

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