NMCH junior doctors’ strike continues

PATNA: The Nalanda Medical College and Hospital (NMCH) junior doctors continued their indefinite strike for the second day on Wednesday demanding armed security guards on the premises for their security. The doctors went on strike on Tuesday evening after some people thrashed a few of them and fired in the air for allegedly refusing to admit their patient in the central emergency ward.
The doctors claimed they had brought the patient first at around 11am in a very critical condition. But the doctors could not admit him in the ICU for lack of beds and advised his relatives to take him to either PMCH or IGIMS. “The medicine department ICU has not been functioning since waterlogging last week. Patients, as of now, are being kept in the surgical ICU, where all the beds were full,” a doctor said, preferring anonymity. He said when the relatives brought the patient again around 5pm, he was dead.
“It is disturbing that someone could so easily carry a weapon inside the hospital. This not only jeopardized the lives of the doctors, but the patients as well. We will call off the strike only after an FIR is lodged and the guilty people are arrested,” NMCH junior doctor association (JDA) president Dr Ravi Ranjan Kumar Raman said.
The NMCH JDA is demanding the barricading of central emergency, metal detectors on its gates and wards as well as setting up of a temporary police outpost near the hospital. They are also demanding the appointment of a chief security officer belonging to the rank of colonel and strict implementation of one patient-one attendant rule in the hospital.
NMCH superintendent Dr Chandrashekhar said the hospital administration met with health department principal secretary Sanjay Kumar on Wednesday and discussed the situation. “We are trying our best to have the accused arrested. The police are trying to identify the miscreants. A police outpost will be set up near the hospital,” he said.
The junior residents did not report to work at emergency, OPD, ICUs as well as labour rooms and the health services in the hospital remained paralysed. Registration counters were forced to shut down at 9am. Three women in labour were allowed to deliver their babies after which no patient was admitted to the labour room, sources said.