Couldn't donate eyes due to doctor's strike: Kin of deceased

Sandesh Pande, a resident of Aurangabad said that he is distressed because he coyuld not fulfill his brother Rajendra's last wish to donate his eyes due to doctor's stir.

Mumbai, Mar 23: Sandesh Pande is distressed as he could not fulfil his brother's last wish to donate his eyes and blames the resident doctors' strike in Maharashtra for that. "Had the resident doctors not been on strike, eyes of my brother Rajendra, who died on March 20, could have been donated and someone would have been able to see the world," Pande, a resident of Aurangabad, said.

Rajendra, who died on March 20 following a heart attack, had pledged to donate his eyes. "I have so far taken the initiative in making around 50 people undertake eye donations. However, I am sad that I could not do so in the case of my brother, due to the resident doctors' strike," Sandesh said.

"After my brother died, we were after the doctors at the Government Medical College and Hospital at Aurangabad to get the eye donation procedure completed. A doctor expressed his willingness to do so and had even prepared the (medical) kit needed for the procedure," Pande said. "However, other (resident) doctors reached there, saying they are on strike and took him away," he said.

Asked about the complaint, acting Dean of the hospital, Dr Ajit Damle, said no such information had reached him so far. As the strike by junior Maharashtra's doctors, who are protesting a spate of assaults on colleagues by patients' relatives, entered the fourth day on Thursday, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and the Bombay High Court asked them to resume work immediately.

PTI