Patna junior doctors on strike

Patna, Dec 25 (UNI) Work in Patna Medical College Hospital(PMCH) has been out of gear since last night as junior doctors resorted to a wildcat strike demanding adequate security in their workplace.

As usual indoor patients were taken ransom and they are in the lurch with no doctors to attend to them.

At least six patients undergoing treatment in PMCH died since launch of the agitation, allegedly for want of timely medical care.

This is for the tenth time in the last three years that junior doctors of PMCH ceased work to realise their demands--four times on security issue.

Although ceasework is considered to be the last item in the aggrieved employees' armoury to force the management bow down and the notion is more relevant to doctors who dedicate themselves to the service of suffering human beings, junior doctors of PMCH took recourse to strike for three days in September, 2003, followed by one day in November that year.

During 2004, they again went on strike for three days, ten days and one day in January, February and June respectively.

In 2005 PMCH junior doctors stayed away from duty for 16 days on various grounds. After NDA assumed power in the state this is the first occasion for Junior medicoes to launch an agitation.

The immediate provocation this time was an alleged assault on some junior doctors by relatives of a female patient who died while undergoing treatment. The anguished relatives of the patient, however, alleged that the patient not only died due to the negligence of the doctors but they were also manhandled by some doctors after the relatives and medicos entered into a brawl over the reason of death.

A preliminary round of talks between the state's health minister Chandra Mohan Rai and representatives of agitating doctors failed to yield any result although efforts were on to persuade the junior doctors to resume duty, official sources said.

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