Govt threatens striking docs as stir jolts hospital work

New Delhi, May 15 (UNI) The government today threatened to take stringent action against the striking doctors, as work in several health institutions suffered badly after the agitating medics intensified their anti-reservation stir.

Asserting that the medical services are life-saving services, Union Health Minister ANbumani Ramadoss said government would take action against the doctors agitating against reservation for OBCs in the higher educational institutions like AIIMS, PGI, IIMs and IITs.

The Health Minister also blamed the media for instigating the striking doctors by showing the indefinite strike of the resident doctors of the Central Government-run hospitals on TV channels.

He urged the media to desist from covering these agitations.

Meanwhile, the Delhi government has cancelled leave of doctors in its hospitals with immediate effect in view of the strike.

Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh also reiterated that he was willing to talk to the striking doctors.

Health Ministry officials said government was planning action against resident doctors if they continued to abstain from work.

Action will be taken against striking doctors and they would be served memos, they added.

In the Lok Sabha, Janata Dal (United) MP Prabhunath Singh requested the Speaker to direct the government to arrange for medical personnel from the armed forces to help them.

Referring to the HRD Minister's statements on the reservation issue, he said, he did not know whether his (Mr Arjun Singh) statements were directed against Defence Minister Pranab Mukerjee or the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but they would ''definitely put him in trouble.'' The medical services in several government and private hospitals suffered badly today as doctors intensified stir against reservation quotas following brutal lathicharge on ''peacefully demonstrating'' medicos in the national capital and Mumbai.

The issue, though raised by MBBS student in the national Capital, sparked a nation-wide rage among the doctors after lathicharge on doctors, leading to the ''medical bandh'' call by the Indian Medical Association (IMA).

The strike, called by the Indian Medical Association (IMA), is aimed to force government to roll back the proposed 27 per cent rservation for OBCs in the institutes of higher education.

... x x x Eds: pick up suitably from earlier series x x x ....

UNI Team VJ VC2025