Medical services suspended in various govt & private hospitals in Goa

Goa Panaji, June 17: Several doctors in Goa boycotted work on Monday and took out a 'silent protest march' here to condemn the attack on some of their colleagues in West Bengal. In response to the strike call given by their apex body IMA, the non-essential medical services were suspended in various government and private hospitals of the coastal state, an official said.

A number of doctors participated in the silent protest march taken out from the Azad Maidan to Panjim market in the state capital. Shekhar Salkar, the former chief of Indian Medical Association (IMA), Goa, who took part in the protest march, said, "Doctors were striking work in the coastal state to express solidarity with their colleagues who were recently attacked in West Bengal." He demanded that armed security personnel be deployed outside all casualty wards in government-run hospitals. The private hospitals should also take care to protect their doctors from unwarranted attacks, he said.

In Goa, he said, there were very few incidents in the past of doctors being attacked by families of patients. "But, in such cases, the culprits were booked and punished. We are thankful to former chief minister late Manohar Parrikar as his then government issued a look out notice against a person who fled abroad after attacking a doctor here," Salkar said.

When doctors feel secure, they can provide better treatment to patients, he said. Salkar said though there were no noticeable incidents of violence against doctors in Goa, the IMA's local branch would submit a memorandum to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, condemning the attack on medical practitioners in West Bengal.

Junior doctors in West Bengal are on strike since June 11 after two of their colleagues were attacked and seriously injured allegedly by relatives of a patient who died at the NRS Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata. In a show of solidarity, medical practitioners across the country have decided not to work, leaving patients in the lurch.