Junior docs continue stir; services badly hit at Gandhi

Hyderabad: Junior doctors at the government-run Gandhi Hospital continued their strike for the second day on Tuesday, causing severe inconvenience to patients and paralysing medical services.

Protesting the attack on a junior doctor by the relatives of a patient, over 400 junior doctors took part in strike action. They demanded the immediate arrest of those involved in the attack on their colleague on Sunday night.

The Telangana Government Doctors' Association has demanded permanent security cover in all teaching hospitals in the State and deployment of a Special Protection Force (SPF) to provide security. It alleged that private security agencies deployed a few years ago too had failed to protect the doctors.

In 2007, junior doctors had gone on a month-long strike to protest an incident in which a local legislator manhandled a junior doctor at Niloufer Hospital here. The government then issued an ordinance making attacks on doctors a non-bailable offence.

It provided SPF cover and set up a police outpost on Niloufer campus after another attack on a junior doctor in 2011. The SPF was subsequently removed and the services of private security agencies were hired.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday several patients were seen lying unattended as the outpatient services remained crippled. The in-patient services were also hit and surgeries were put off as junior doctors refused to attend to their duties. The relatives of patients also staged a parallel protest near the gates of Gandhi Hospital seeking early intervention by the government to end the strike.