SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack

Cuttack, June 30: A social organisation has sought the intervention of Orissa High Court against the ongoing strike by junior doctors at SCB Medical College and Hospital.

“The petition was moved on Friday and it has been referred to the division bench of Justice Pradip Mohanty and Justice Biswajit Mohanty. It is expected to be taken up for hearing tomorrow,” advocate Gadadhar Sahu said today.

“We have sought the court’s direction to the striking junior doctors to resume work immediately and restore health service at the hospital,” Sahu said.

Legal Support & Social Action, which filed the petition, said the high court’s intervention was necessary because functioning of the departments and critical units at the hospital had been affected by the strike.

Around 450 junior doctors at the hospital have been on strike since June 24. They have been demanding the removal of the medical college’s dean and the head of the department of medicine. They also want a journalist, against whom they had filed a complaint, to be arrested.

Police had arrested Nihar Parida, a postgraduate student in medicine, who had allegedly detained a local television channel reporter Chittaranjan Samantaray and a colleague of the scribe over a dispute in the indoor ward. He is now out on bail.

The junior doctors are annoyed with the college authorities for allegedly not extending them the desired support following the incident on June 15. On June 17, the college authorities had condemned the detention of the local television channel reporter and his colleague.