Patna: Junior doctors at Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) withdrew their strike on Friday but added a word of caution. Sources said the doctors called off the strike after a meeting with health minister Mangal Pandey in which he assured them of adequate security cover on the hospital campus.
Before calling off the strike, the Junior Doctors Association, however, said it would review security measures at medical college hospitals across the state on November 21 and take a call on strikes across government medical college hospitals if the situation did not improve.
"Whatever has been communicated to us by the health minister looks largely like assurance," said association president Vinay Kumar. "We will review the situation at state-run medical college hospitals across the state after three days. In case there is no change, we will be forced to call a state-wide strike."
Health minister Pandey had called the junior doctors for a meeting at the secretariat around 2pm. The doctors did not withdraw their strike soon after the meeting. The Junior Doctors Association of the hospital called an internal meeting around 6.30pm, after which the strike was called off.
The decision to review security at government hospitals was taken at the same meeting.
The junior doctors of PMCH went on strike on Thursday after around 30 people attacked them in the early morning claiming that a dengue patient died unattended. The doctors, however, said the patient was brought dead.
The hospital administration later checked footage from closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras installed at the emergency wing of the hospital and saw that a mob had entered the hospital with sticks and rods and chased and beaten up doctors.
This is not the first such incident at PMCH.
Last year, around 100 people had attacked junior and senior doctors in the hospital's emergency wing and doctors had to lock themselves up in the operation theatre to save their lives till police arrived.
In Thursday's incident, Bihar Military Police (BMP) jawans reached the site an hour after the ruckus, according to the junior doctors.
That is why the doctors are demanding strong security measures at the hospital.
Deepak Tandon, superintendent in-charge at PMCH, claimed that security was beefed up after Thursday's incident.
"Earlier we had only two armed personnel but today (Friday) 15 armed personnel were provided to us apart from a sub-inspector and 18 homeguard jawans on a temporary basis," Tandon said.
"Tomorrow we are going to get 50 armed personnel on a permanent basis as communicated to us by the health department. Hope this would suffice. Also, we are strongly going to implement the pass system at the hospital," he added.
Sources said the junior doctors put up some of their earlier demands at the meeting convened by health minister Pandey.
They sought a new review committee to increase stipends and demanded that FIRs lodged against four medicos during the postgraduate counselling exam in May be withdrawn.
While the PMCH junior doctors' association has called off the strike, their counterparts at Nalanda Medical College and Hospital (NMCH) have submitted a charter of demands to hospital superintendent Anand Prasad Singh. Like the PMCH doctors, they to want extra security cover.
