Doctors’ strike: Woman dies due to ‘delay’ in treatment

Health services in the government-run hospitals were crippled on Thursday with resident doctors going on a day’s strike demanding an increase in their allowances and salaries. There was chaos in the government hospitals with doctors out rightly refusing to attend to patients and some of them even referring them to the already overburdened other government-run hospitals.

The Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital was hit by protests over death of a 70-year-old patient, who had to run from pillar to post for want of treatment, forcing medical authorities to seek police protection.

Sabra Begum allegedly died as she reportedly could not receive medical help on time. The deceased had visited the hospital with severe pain in her stomach. However, there were unconfirmed claims that the LNJP Hospital doctors refused to administer her any treatment. She breathed her last in the hospital even before her family could shift her to AIIMS.

Agitated over the alleged negligence, Sabra Begum’s son Sabir and other relatives placed her body on the road outside the hospital, which led to massive traffic jams in the area. Finally, with the intervention of the police the deceased’s family agreed to move her body to her East Delhi’s Nirman Vihar residence.

Patients shuttled from one hospital to another to seek medical help as the Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA), which represents over 15,000 resident doctors and 41 government hospitals in the national capital, took out a protest march from Lady Hardinge Medical College to Jantar Mantar in support of their demands, including a hike in salaries. Carrying banners and shouting slogans, the resident doctors also protested outside the Union health ministry office at Nirman Bhavan. The doctors shouted slogans like, “Unite and fight against 7th Pay Commission” and “Doctors care for the patients nobody cares for the doctors.”

Like Sabra Begum, many other patients in other city hospitals were unable to get treatment due to the strike. At R.M.L. Hospital, 25-year-old Anup, who was injured in a road accident, had to wait for three hours before he was told by the doctors to go to Safdarjung Hospital. The doctors told him they would not be able to provide him any conveyance and he would have to shift on his own.

At LNJP, several patients were allotted beds, but were not provided with any medical assistance. A middle-aged man writhing in pain said he had been lying in the hospital bed for two hours without getting any treatment. “We have been waiting here for quite some time now. We have asked the doctors to provide us with treatment. But the chief medical officers have been the only ones who have given us any assistance,” added one of the other patients.

The doctors’ association wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to revise the 7th Pay Commission recommendations for the doctors. “The government provides us with a non-practice allowance that encourages doctors to enrol in government hospitals. Initially, the allowance given to us was 25 per cent. We were assured that the allowance would be raised to 40 per cent, but instead it was reduced to 20 per cent. Through these protests, we are demanding a revision of this commission and a raise in our allowances,” junior resident doctor Manoj told this newspaper.

The protest march was first to culminate at Nirman Bhavan but on the request of the police officials, the doctors changed the location to Jantar Mantar. Asked what measures they had taken for emergency care in the hospitals, a senior Lady Hardinge doctor claimed: “Contingency plans have been put in place in all hospitals to cater to emergency and trauma cases.”