Patna: The 225 junior doctors of Nalanda Medical College and Hospital (NMCH) have gone on an "undeclared strike" since Saturday, affecting services in the hospital's emergency, out patient, and in patient departments, after a patient died on Friday and her attendants assaulted some doctors on duty.
NMCH superintendent Dr Chandrashekhar said the junior doctors did not give prior notice before withdrawing their services.
The patient who died, Rupa Rani, wife of Santosh Kumar from Raniganj under Mehendiganj police station, was in labour. The junior doctors claim that the lady attendants of the patient thrashed some junior doctors after Rupa died. The doctors also claimed that around 300 people had later turned up at the hospital to create trouble for the doctors but the administration intervened.
Principal secretary, health, Sanjay Kumar, confirmed to The Telegraph on Sunday that he had asked the NMCH administration to resolve the matter on its own.
"It is unfortunate that things have unfolded after 24 hours of the incident," Sanjay said. "The junior doctors didn't inform the hospital administration about the incident the same day. We have asked the hospital administration to try solve the matter by holding talks with the doctors."
Junior doctors at NMCH had gone on strike on August 7 over similar demands for security but they had informed the hospital administration. They had resumed work on August 10 after the administration assured them of fulfilling their demands.
"Technically the junior doctors are on duty as they are marking their attendance but they are not working," Chandrashekhar said. "They are not rendering their service. Around 225 postgraduate (student) doctors are there in the hospital. We are trying to initiate talks and resolve the matter. We even informed police on Saturday and got police force stationed on the campus. We could have taken this step earlier but we were not informed. It was only when the junior doctors (postgraduate students) withdrew their services on Saturday and we asked them, they informed us about the incident. Our head of the departments are trying to talk to them. We are managing OPD, IPD and emergency with the help of our senior doctors."
Dr Ravi Ranjan Kumar Rajan, president of the junior doctors' association at NMCH, denied they were on undeclared strike.
"We have not called any strike. The junior doctors are working in the indoor, OPD and emergency. If we would not have rendered our service, a chaos like situation would have been created at the hospital," he said.
Asked whether all doctors were working, he didn't respond. "Nothing has been hampered. So you cannot say that we are not working," he said.
Patients and attendants, however, said junior doctors were not on duty and that it had affected patient care.
"Doctors didn't come to check my father yesterday and today also none turned up," said Sunil Ram, son of Bahadur Ram who is admitted in the indoor wing. "This might be due to the protest of junior doctors. Patients are bearing the brunt of the undeclared strike."
Arjun Yadav said his wife's hernia operation was scheduled on Saturday but it didn't happen.
"I was told that the operation was cancelled due to junior doctors' strike," Arjun said.
Junior doctors' association sources said whether they would resume work on Monday depends on if the administration fulfils their security related demands.
