New Delhi, May 17: Striking doctors and medical students remained on fast and the capital’s teaching hospitals served sack orders on some senior residents today as battle lines hardened on either side of the reservation divide.

While hospitals like Lady Hardinge served termination letters on ad hoc doctors and senior residents, others such as the All India Institute of Medical Sciences warned of serious action if the protesting medics did not get back to work.

The government called in help from army doctors in some hospitals and said it was losing patience.

“We have issued notices to doctors ... we may have to replace them,” health minister Anbumani Ramadoss said. “This is not the way to take the government to ransom.”

Junior residents and student doctors, on hunger strike for more than 80 hours now, have been spared for the time being.

Although no deadline has been specified in the notices issued by AIIMS, most doctors said they were expected to rejoin work in the next 24 hours or get fired.

But a doctor from Lady Hardinge said they would accept the termination letters. “We are willing to give up our jobs to support the students.”

There were, however, reports of a split in the Resident Doctors Association (RDA) and that some doctors had agreed to return to work.

One doctor claimed that an RDA office-bearer, who was from “a certain caste”, was apparently under pressure to sign a strike withdrawal call. But, he added, other striking residents were against the move. So their strike was still on against the proposal to more than double the proportion of seats reserved for backward sections to 49.5 per cent in educational institutions.

The day also saw pro- and anti-reservation groups exchange words on the AIIMS campus. The rival groups shouted slogans and police stepped in to avert a clash after reports that another group, from Deendayal Upadhyaya Hospital, was approaching.

The hunger strike has, however, taken a toll. “One student developed fits, and two have gone into hypoglycemic shock as their glucose count went down to 26. The normal range is 80 to 100,” said a doctor. “Another student had an asthma attack.”

Student representatives met Oscar Fernandes, the minister of state without portfolio. He told them the issue had come up in Parliament but time was needed to resolve it.

The agitating students wore T-shirts with slogans like “The fire of hunger keeps my soul burning”, “Kill me before you kill my merit” and “I’m hungry for a better nation”.

The Youth for Equality group began a signature campaign as support for the strike spread across the country.