The Junior Doctors who are on strike all of a sudden boycotted emergency services also from 6 p.m. on Monday. Out of the 260 post-graduates and interns (doing house surgery) the administration were left with a fifth of the force to run the show on Monday night.
Government General Hospital superintendent S. Babu Lal told The Hindu that 21 “service post-graduates” and 17 interns from other states were not participating in the strike. Three non-clinical faculty members were also available for the night.
Doctors were requisitioned to tide over the strike from the Siddhartha Medical College and the district hospitals, Dr. Lal said. The paramedical staff at the GGH are anxious hoping that no serious cases arrive at night.
The strike could not have been more badly timed because viral fevers are wreaking havoc in the district. The District Medical and Health Department is itself under pressure. The only silver line to the crisis is that district Collector and GGH Development Society chairman Buddha Prakash Jyothi is a doctor of medicine.
Earlier, the junior doctors on strike took out a rally from the Siddhartha Medical College. They raised slogans against the state Government and Director of Medical Education (DME) and demanded that due importance be given to the bipartite agreement signed with the Junior Doctors’ Association.
Junior doctors abstained from elective duties at the Government General Hospital (GGH). They staged a protest in front of the GGH’s administrative block and expressed regret that the Government has cheated them after promising to look into their grievances. If the Government continues to drag the issue, the agitation would be intensified covering emergency services also, the Guntur Medical College (GMC) P.G Students’ Association has warned.
Fifteen staff members of non-clinical departments of GMC were sent on deputation to the GGH and a few others from Andhra Pradesh Vaidya Vidhana Parishat.
The District Medical & Health Officer will be sending doctors to GGH from Tuesday if the agitation is intensified. The junior doctor's planned to boycott emergency services in the event of the deadlock remaining unresolved.
