Medical services hit as junior docs intensify stir

Medical services in the government-run hospitals across Andhra Pradesh were hit Monday as the junior doctors intensified their strike.Emergency services in the Gandhi Hospital and Osmania Hospital in the state capital came to a standstill as junior doctors came out to protest the delay on part of the government to meet their long-pending demands.

Patients in the King George Hospital in Visakhapatnam and the Guntur Hospital were also suffering because of the strike.
The striking junior doctors alleged that the government failed to issue guidelines with regard to their rural service.
They recalled that their demands including the demand for reducing compulsory service in rural areas from three years to one year were accepted following a month-long strike in January-February this year.
According to the junior doctors' association, the committee formed by the government to implement the bipartite agreement of Feb 14, failed to reach a consensus.
While junior doctors in four teaching hospitals were on strike for last five days, their counterparts in other hospitals joined the protest Monday.
The other demands by about 3,000 medicos in the 10 major teaching hospitals include improving infrastructure in the hospitals as per the guidelines of the Medical Council of India, making the payment of post-graduate doctors serving in rural areas on par with medical officers and deployment of special protection force at all medical colleges.

IANS