A junior doctor treats patients at the parallel outpatient department outside PMCH on Thursday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, Feb. 3: The city saw the humanitarian face of the agitating junior doctors of Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) on the fourth day of their strike today. Running a parallel outpatient department (OPD) at the health hub, they treated over 200 patients.

The parallel OPD centre started functioning from 9.30am. It continued till 1.30pm.

Patients with general, orthopaedic, eye, surgery, ENT and gynaecological problems were treated in the OPD. The doctors, in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies, had arranged for various types of drugs. They were distributed free of cost to the patients.

“This is a humanitarian service. We know several people are suffering because of the strike. So, we took the initiative. But the government should realise our demands are justified and we should be given a conducive environment to serve people,” Dr Sant Sevi, the co-ordinator of PMCH Junior Doctors’ Association (JDA), said.

The junior medicos are on strike for the past four days. They went on warpath after two security guards of the RJD legislator Surendra Prasad Yadav opened fire allegedly on his instructions at two interns of Anugraha Narayan Magadh Medical College and Hospital in Gaya last Sunday. The doctors have been demanding the arrest of the MLA and immediate implementation of Medical Professional Protection Act (MPPA).

Dr Major Madhukar, a member of JDA, said a group of over 50 students met Amarjeet Sinha, the principal secretary of the state health department, today and apprised him of their four major demands. “Apart from the arrest of the MLA and implementation of MPPA (Andhra Pradesh Model), we want proper security arrangements at the medical colleges and senior residency scheme for medical students like us. We also told the principal secretary that we want to meet chief minister Nitish Kumar on these issues,” he said.

Sinha said his meeting with the medicos had been “satisfactory”. “I told them that all their demands were being considered seriously and some of the demands are such that they cannot be met with in a day or two. We need some time to study all facets of their grievances. The government is hopeful that the strike will be called off shortly,” he told The Telegraph.

He also claimed that emergency and OPD services were running normally at the medical colleges. “We have provided additional doctors to different hospitals as per requirement. But it will be better if the junior doctors end their strike,” Sinha added.