Krishnagar, Oct. 18: Alarmed over a rising backlog of surgeries, the Nadia health authorities have decided to get doctors to operate on patients even on holidays.

Over 3,000 patients who need minor or mid-serious surgeries ? of the ear, nose, throat, sinus, cataract, hernia, gall bladder or for various gynaecological disorders ? are now waiting in the queue.

Twenty surgeons would carry out the operations in seven hospitals across the district on Sundays and other holidays. A list of 50 nurses, who would assist the doctors, has been drawn up and two anaesthetists have been requisitioned from Calcutta.

The first batch of 40 surgeries was performed in the district hospital in Krishnagar on the Sunday before the Puja. Over 500 operations are scheduled to be conducted in the district hospital itself.

The district’s chief medical officer of health, Mrinal Kanti Biswas, said this is the first time that such a plan has been evolved.

“We held a series of meetings with the administration on how to reduce the huge number of pending operations and realised that there was no way out but to work on holidays,” said Biswas.

Emergency surgeries get precedence over those less urgent and so such cases keep mounting, Biswas explained.

Officials said the cases had also piled up because of lack of surgeons and anaesthetists.

The huge backlog first came to light when patients lodged complaints with the zilla parishad sabhadhipati, Rama Biswas. Over the past two months, such complaints only increased in number.

The patients told Rama Biswas that dates of their operations were being deferred repeatedly.

After the administration decided on a way to reduce the backlog, it involved the Nadia chapter of the Indian Medical Association to ensure that doctors did not raise objections to the plan.

“We requested the IMA to convince the surgeons of the immediate need to bring down the backlog,” the chief medical officer said.

A.K. Basumallick, the IMA secretary in Nadia, said: “We told our members that this was a chance to prove ourselves. If we can work hard and clear the backlog, we will set an example for the rest of the state. As it is we often earn a bad name and are charged with negligence by patients and their relatives.”