Docs sacrifice all for tsunami SOS

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Ashok Nandi is the proprietor of a nursing home and has a roaring practice. He is willing to forgo all that for two months so that he can be on the tsunami battered Andaman and Nicobar Islands.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Amalendu Bikash Toong had a cushy job at a top-notch city-based private hospital.A long leave of two months was out of the question, his employers said. So he chucked his job to help tsunami victims.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Sanchita Bhattacharya’s family is worried about her security. Still, she must go, everyone feels. She just cannot forget that her job is to serve the distressed, they have told her.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Dipankar Kundu is in the midst of his all-important post-graduation preparations. But he, too, feels that his dreams can wait. He, too, has packed his kit and bag to be there where he is needed. </span><br /><br />But now that they have all packed their bags after each having given up something very important in their life, they find themselves on hold. <br /><br />The Centre — which appealed to Bengal''s doctors to serve tsunami victims — has not yet decided when the first batch of doctors should leave for the battered islands. "The exact schedule actually depends on the perception (of the necessity for expert medical assistance) of the administration there," Union principal secretary, health, P.K. Hota explained. <br /><br />It was a couple of days after the tsunami, in the last week of December, that the Centre issued the help-and-serve appeal. And the Calcutta chapter of the Indian Medical Association responded in a few days; the first batch of names was sent to the Union health ministry from the Journal of Indian Medical Association building on Creek Row in the first week of January. <br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal">Doctors were first sounded out, IMA spokespersons said. "Going out for two months was an inconvenience that most did not want. Many were willing to go for a month only. But, considering the situation, everyone we sounded out responded positively," IMA national president Sudipto Roy added. <br /><br />The doctors will be paid Rs 20,000 a month but that is much less than what each is giving up. "Besides, most have already decided to pay a major share of the honorarium to the tsunami relief fund," one of the doctors said. "We are ready to serve but the government must realise that we cannot put our careers on hold indefinitely," he added. <br /><br />Another city-based doctors'' organisation, the Medical Service Centre, is also tired of the wait. So it is sending another team of senior doctors independently on Friday, say MSC spokespersons.<br /></div> </div>