Doctors, para-medical and outsourcing staff stalled work in Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences at Putlampalle here on Wednesday demanding suspension of RIMS Director C. Siddhappa Gaurav alleging that he was harassing them.
Doctors abstained from out-patient duties and did not go to the wards from 9 a.m. to 12 noon and squatted in front of the out-patient block. Government Doctors’ Association president S.A.S. Farooq alleged that the Director was harassing the doctors of late and unrest prevailed on the campus ever since Dr. Siddhappa Gaurav took charge as Director.
Several doctors went on leave unable to bear the harassment and fresh doctors were unwilling to join RIMS, he alleged.
Though they signed in the attendance registers, the Director was sending another book asking them to sign whenever he desired, even when they were in the operation theatre, the association leaders alleged.
Warning that they would intensify the protest if the Director did not change his attitude, the association leaders and doctors Yadavendra Reddy, Sanjeevaiah, Lakshmikala, Vijaya and outsourcing staff took out a rally and placed their memorandum at YSR statue on the campus.
On learning about doctors’ strike, In-charge Collector K. Nirmala visited the RIMS Hospital and held discussions with Dr. Siddhappa Gaurav and hospital superintendent Ramcharan. She examined the attendance registers and instructed the Director to mark absent for those doctors who did not sign in it. She said that she instructed the Director to seek the attendance of doctors on getting reports that doctors were not punctual to duties. She told the doctors to personally sign in the attendance registers legibly, in view of reports that doctors were signing for the colleagues who were absent.
Ms. Nirmala cited an instance of doctors’ reluctance to perform a surgery on the ailing father of an attender for four days and ultimately, he admitted his father in a private hospital and got the surgery done by spending thousands of rupees.
The In-charge Collector lamented frequent boycott of duties by the doctors and staff members causing inconvenience to the patients. She warned against recurrence of such instances.
