Imphal, Feb. 8: The authorities of the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences today renewed their plea to striking employees to resume emergency services as patients grew restive for want of treatment.
The appeal was made after the employees shut down the outpatient department for an indefinite period from 9am today, demanding release of their January salaries. Emergency services at RIMS remained suspended since Saturday.
The strike had a telling effect on patients, particularly those who cannot find affordable treatment elsewhere.
Waikhom Ramani Devi, for instance, had to pay much more to get her son, suffering from a severe toothache, examined.
“I came for my son’s treatment here but the OPD was closed. Why should doctors close the hospital for the delay in payment of their salaries for a few days?” she asked.
Ramani, who hails from Imphal West, today had to skip work under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme for the treatment. Worse, she had to pay Rs 100 for her son’s medical check-up in a private hospital. At RIMS it would have cost her only Rs 5.
“The rich can go to private hospitals. For poor people like us, RIMS is the only hospital where we can afford check-ups and treatment; Rs 100 is a day’s wage for me,” she said.
“Are the doctors starving because of the delay of their salaries?” Khundrakpam Maimu, who turned up at the casualty department for a fractured ankle, asked.
Though prior information was issued about the closures in the media, the strike hit the poor and the illiterate.
The medical superintendent of the institute, Y. Mohen Singh, admitted that the people were the ones who suffered most. In identical letters written to the presidents of the four associations today, the superintendent appealed to the strikers to resume emergency services in view of the extreme suffering of the people. The associations, however, are yet to respond to the appeal.
Though the superintendent declined to react to allegations of mismanagement of funds provided by the Union health ministry, sources close to director L. Fimate said there was no question of mismanagement or funds diversion.
“We are waiting for the permission for encashment from the health ministry. We have the fund. But without the permission, we cannot encash money from the bank,” a source close to the director said.
