Amid the indefinite strike by the Maharashtra Association Resident Doctors (MARD) across the city, there has been a drop by 20-25 percent in the number of patients visiting Outpatient Departments Across the civic-run hospital on Friday.
However only the emergency service at the hospital was functional by the head of department. Meanwhile MARD has threatened it will not resume work until their demands are not fulfilled. Doctors said the higher authorities are not ready to meet our demand following which they decided to go on indefinite strike since Friday morning across Maharashtra.
Dr Ramesh Bharmal, Dean, BYL Nair Hospital said all the emergency services were functional except the OPD which was affected due to the strike. Moreover they have directed all the heads of the departments to work so that the patients are not affected.
“The number of OPD patients dropped by 20-25 per cent across all the hospitals due to the MARD strike, but we had directed all the senior doctors to handle the situation so that none of the patients are affected. We had more than 2,000 patients in OPD on Friday compared to 3,000 patients on a regular day, moreover if the strike does not end then patients will be affected more in the coming days,” he said.
Dr Akshay Yadav, member of MARD said, coctors have sacrificed everything for the people of India. So they just want justice for COVID-19 warriors. “Our primary demand is that academic fees should be waived off. Secondly, the hostel conditions should be improved as they are not good throughout Maharashtra. Third, TDS should not be deducted from the stipend of resident doctors of BMC hospitals. The government hospitals throughout Maharashtra have not received the COVID-19 incentives. They should receive the incentive,” he said.
Dr Dilip Mhaisekar, Director, Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) said they are in discussions with the resident doctors regarding the indefinite strike and all their demands will be discussed with the health minister. “We are communicating with the doctors and hope their agitation will end soon,” he said.
Another resident doctor say that no action has been taken by the authorities in response to their demands as promised in August, and said it needs assurance in writing that all their demands would be fulfilled. “We have been raising the issues for the last five months and we have met all the senior authorities discussing our demand, but no action has been taken. No written assurance was received from the Maharashtra government so we will continue with our strike,” he said.
Their primary demands are:
• Academic fees should be waived off.
• Hostel conditions should be improved as they are not good throughout Maharashtra
• TDS should not be deducted from the stipend of resident doctors of BMC hospitals
• The government hospitals throughout Maharashtra have not received the COVID-19 incentives, which they should receive
