Medical and paramedical staff during the protest in Imphal on Wednesday. Picture by Eastern Projections

Imphal, Oct. 28: Doctors and other medical staff of Manipur observed a three-hour ceasework today in protest against the recent murder of a retired state medical officer, virtually crippling healthcare services.

The bludgeoned body of Huidrom Binodkumar Singh, a retired doctor, was found by farmers in a paddy field in Imphal East last Thursday.

All government and private hospitals today shut their OPDs and suspended routine work from 10am to 1pm following a decision of the Manipur branch of the Indian Medical Association to protest Singh’s murder. The clinics too remained shut.

Operations too remained suspended. Emergency operations, however, were allowed to continue uninterrupted.

The Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), the only central institute in Manipur and Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital (JNH), the state-run hospital, also suspended services, the medical superintendent of RIMS, Y. Mohen Singh, said.

Operations were suspended for three hours at RIMS and the JNH.

Doctors, nurses and medical students staged sit-ins at the institutes.

The largest sit-in was held at the gate of the medical directorate.

Doctors of RIMS and the officials of the directorate took part in the sit-ins .

“We demand an end to killings of doctors, threat to medical personnel and harassment faced by them. The culprits should also be brought to book,” the spokesman for the Indian Medical Association, Kh. Palin, said.

Many patients coming to RIMS and the JNH returned disappointed.

“It is very unfortunate that I have to go back as I could not find any hospital or clinic for my daughter’s treatment. She is suffering from acute pain. I came from a village in Imphal East and now we have to go back home,” Shamu Singh said while getting into an autorickshaw at the RIMS gate.

Price rise protest: The trade unions today staged a sit-in at the Keishampat junction as part of a nationwide protest against price rise. They demanded streamlining of the public distribution system and protection of jobs. Bank employees also joined the protest but continued work by wearing badges.