The 24-hour State-wide strike by house surgeons boycotting non-emergency services hit the functioning of the Government Medical College Hospital, Kozhikode, on Monday.
The strike is in support of the ongoing indefinite agitation by postgraduate medical students seeking fast-tracking of NEET-PG allotment, among other things.
According to sources, only the casualty department had some semblance of normalcy. Many patients had not been coming to the medical college hospital for the past few days ever since the postgraduate students began keeping off emergency services. The outpatient department had very few patients. The indefinite strike entered the 13th day on Monday.
The house surgeons claim that the indefinite strike by the postgraduate medical students had increased their workload, and they were under immense pressure. The students’ union of the medical college also gave a call to boycott classes on Monday expressing solidarity with the house surgeons and postgraduate doctors. Members of the Kerala Government Postgraduate Medical Teachers Association too observed a three-hour strike from 8 a.m. Apart from supporting the indefinite strike, the teachers also flagged the wage disparities for assistant professors in medical colleges.
A section of the striking postgraduate students went to the State capital to participate in the Secretariat march on Monday.
Meanwhile, the process to appoint Non-Academic Junior Resident Doctors, which was one of the demands put forward by the students, has reportedly begun at the medical college.
