Resident doctors call off protest, join duty; police to cancel FIR

14-day work boycott at hospitals was to protest the delay in NEET-PG counselling

January 01, 2022 01:31 am | Updated 03:18 am IST -

Members of FORDA announcing the withdrawal of their strike in New Delhi on December 31, 2021.

Members of FORDA announcing the withdrawal of their strike in New Delhi on December 31, 2021.

Hundreds of resident doctors, who had been boycotting work for 14 days to protest the delay in NEET-PG counselling, called off their strike on Friday.

“The strike has been called off and the doctors will join duty at 12 p.m. today [Friday]. We had a detailed discussion with the police, and they assured us to withdraw all punitive actions, including the FIR,” Dr. Kulsaurabh Kaushik, general secretary of the Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association (FORDA), said.

On Monday, the protesting doctors were marching towards the Supreme Court when they were stopped by the police near ITO. FORDA said that the doctors were “brutally thrashed, dragged, and detained” by the police, but the latter refuted the allegation.

Later, the police registered an FIR of rioting, causing obstruction to duty of police personnel, and damaging public property against the doctors. Following this, FORDA demanded an apology from Delhi Police and also cancellation of the FIR.

On Tuesday afternoon, members of FORDA met the Union Health Minister, but talks were inconclusive and the protest continued.

The counselling is delayed as cases are pending in the Supreme Court over reservation for the economically weaker section.

Announcing withdrawal of the protest, FORDA said in a statement that at Tuesday’s meeting the Minister had agreed to submit a report to the Supreme Court before January 6 when it will hear the matter and to publish the NEET-PG 2021 counselling schedule after the hearing.

Despite this, the strike went on and the decision to end the boycott was taken after the Delhi police assured them to cancel the FIR.

“A series of meetings of FORDA representatives with Delhi Police officials was held on Thursday. They police said that they were well aware of the hardships of doctors and as earlier, they were willing to cooperate with the medical fraternity in any issue. They also assured that the complaint against the resident doctors would be taken care of as per the legal procedure,” the statement said.

Doctors had been boycotting work mainly at the Central Government-run Safdarjung Hospital, RML Hospital, and Lady Hardinge and the Delhi Government-run LNJP and GTB hospitals.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.