Hyderabad: Staff protests hit medical services

Hyderabad: The medical services at state-run hospitals continue to get disrupted due to the continuous protests being held by the staff in several of the government hospitals of Hyderabad.

With most of the medical staff engaged in dharnas, the attendants of patients in several of the government hospitals of the city remained anxious about the health condition of their kin. The essential services on which the lives of patients depended remained out of reach even on Tuesday, as workers including doctors, HODs, sanitation and almost all the departments of health took part in the ongoing protests.

On Tuesday, even the Head of the Departments along with the surgeons, patients and other staff took part in protests demanding basic surgical instruments at Niloufer Hospital. On the other hand, the patient care and sanitation outsourcing workers continued their protests on different issues like salary hike, promotions etc, and vowed to protest every day for an hour.

Expressing fear that they would be deprived of services, some patients demanded that the authorities resolve the matter, so that everyone gets treatment. "There are very few workers for essential services. When these protests take place at the government hospitals, patients are forced to wait for at least three hours to get a doctor's check-up. We are afraid that the situation may get bad," said P Sindhuri, a patient in Gandhi Hospital.

"Protests in the health sector has turned out to be a new normal nowadays. Recently they held a protest for operation theatres, for infrastructure facilities, salaries and many other reasons. We request the government to act immediately before it's too late," said J Krishna Koundinya, a patient in Osmania Hospital.

Protests were reported at Gandhi Hospital, Osmania General Hospital, Niloufer Hospital and all the government and few private hospitals and the major reason was salary and increments. If the government provides salaries on time every worker is ready to do double duty if needed," said Dr Murali Krishna, Koti Government Hospital.

Talking on the protests happening across the hospitals JUDA president Rohit said, "Essential health services is a necessity for every person. To provide uninterrupted services we need a little support from the people and government. We do duties only to serve in a better way, but none of us are protesting to cause a crunch in providing services. We are handling our duties along with holding protests and people need not worry about the situations. Doctors are available in all the hospitals, all the time."