Obeying the Indian Medical Association’s appeal, its units in Jharkhand have resolved that doctors at all government-run and private hospitals would skip the outpatients’ department from Monday 6am to Tuesday 6am.
This means OPD services at government hospitals such as RIMS (Ranchi), MGM (Jamshedpur), PMCH (Dhanbad) would be off on Monday, inconveniencing thousands.
In the capital, IMA secretary (Ranchi) Shyam Sidanha said OPDs at private healthcare hubs too, such as Santevita Hospitals (Albert Ekka Chowk), Raj Hospital (Main Road), Bhagwan Mahavir Medica Superspecialty Hospital (Booty More) and Abdur Razzaque Ansari Memorial Medanta Hospital (Ormanjhi), would not work on Monday.
In and around Jamshedpur, MGM hospital (Sakchi), Sadar Hospitals (Khasmahal) and private multi-specialty hubs Brahmanand Narayana Hrudyalaya (Tamolia), KGMH Medica Hospital (Bistupur) will skip OPDs. But, doubts remain over whether doctors at Tata Main Hospital (Bistupur), Tata Motors Hospital (Telco) and Tinplate hospital (Golmuri) will take part in the strike.
“We personally met the management at Tata Main Hospital and also sent letters to other corporate hospitals to allow their doctors to join the strike in solidarity with the legitimate demands of resident doctors in Bengal who want a central law to check violence against healthcare workers in hospitals. We are confident all doctors at corporate hospitals will join the strike,” said IMA Jamshedpur general secretary Dr Mrityunjay Kumar.
In and around Dhanbad, prominent hospitals to be affected by the OPD strike are PMCH (Saraidhela), Asian Jalan Hospital (Bartand), BCCL Central Hospital (Jagjivannagar), and Muskan Hospital (Chas, Bokaro satellite).
Junior doctors have been protesting since Tuesday in Bengal for security after a mob attacked their colleagues at NRS hospital in Calcutta following the death of an old man.