Patients left in lurch on last day of strike

RANCHI: Doctors of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) Jharkhand and Jharkhand State Health Services (JSHSA) forcibly closed OPD services at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (Rims) on Friday, the third and last day of doctors' strike.
Patients, who came from far, were left in the lurch. Dashrath and Geeta Mahto of Bundu were clueless about how to get a doctor for their five-year-old son Videsh who was complaining of acute stomach ache.Pakur based Mahasweta was forced to wait with her daughter in the Rain Basera as doctors refused to inspect her for a nagging fever in the OPD.
The Rims OPDs, which cater to around 1,200 patients every day, were shut down after JSHSA reached the hospital with 25 doctors.
"We requested Rims doctors to shut down OPD services. They complied," JSHSA secretary Dr Vimlesh Kumar Singh said.
Besides Rims, doctors of Pataliputra Medical College Hospital (PMCH) joined the strike with private doctors. The OPDs were shut despite emergency services being operational. The doctors also staged a protest before the office of civil surgeon and expressed their resentment.
Secretary of IMA, Dr Sushil Kumar, said that about 950 doctors from across the state have submitted their resignation to the IMA and on October 15 all the state government doctors would be submitting their resignation to the chief minister.
He added that medical protection act has been implemented in other states like Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Kerala etc but we are unable to understand why it is not being implemented in Jharkhand despite many cases of manhandling and vandalism with doctors. Besides medical colleges, district hospitals remained crippled for the third consecutive day.