Doctors strike: Delhi Govt cancels leave of doctors

New Delhi, May 15 (UNI) The Delhi Government has cancelled leave of doctors in its hospitals with immediate effect in view of the ''medical bandh'' in the capital which has severely impacted services and caused inconvenience to patients.

The Government has also drawn up an action plan to ensure that patients are attended to in all units of the hospitals including the intensive care and casualty.

''Leave of all the doctors with the Delhi Government has been cancelled due to the strike.... The patients are suffering and for that these doctors are being called back,'' a senior Health Ministry official said.

He said the government together with the Medical Superintendents and Deans has drawn up an action plan to tackle the situation.

''Doctors from other departments are being diverted to ICU, emergency, casualty and trauma services,'' he added.

Patients are being sent to hospitals run by the MCD.

Paramedics have also been pressed into service to assist the doctors in maintaining normal services, he said.

Medical services in government and private hospitals in the capital were severely hit as doctors struck work against police action on Mumbai's agitating students and the Government's proposal to reserve 27 per cent seats for OBCs in centres of higher learning.

Patients were being sent back as senior doctors, consultants, resident and junior doctors boycotted work on the call of a ''medical bandh'' by the Indian Medical Association (IMA).

But for emergency units, services in Delhi's five premier government hospitals including AIIMS, and several private hospitals, together with Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and Escorts Heart Institute, were severely impacted.

However, emergency units of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the Safdarjang, Guru Tegh Bahadur, Maulana Azad and the Lok Nayak Jaiprakash Narain Hospitals were functioning.

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