Zeenews Bureau
Hyderabad: Thousands of junior doctors at the government hospitals here continued to boycott their duties for the third day on Monday, severely affecting the medical services.
The medicos, under the banner of Telangana Junior Doctors Association (TJDA), are striking work to protest against the government’s decision to withdraw the Special Protection Force -- meant to protect doctors from violence by patients' kin – from the hospitals.
They are demanding that the force be re-deployed immediately and are pressing for the setting up of a committee to look into the issue of security of the staff in other teaching hospitals in the state too.
The protests have been on since the last two weeks but got intensified since Saturday night after the doctors refused to attend emergency duties. Medical services stand crippled at Osmania, Gandhi, Niloufer and Government maternity hospitals at Pitlaburz and Sultan Bazar, and at MGM Warangal hospital.
The striking doctors faced flak after the death of nine infants at Niloufer Hospital, allegedly due to lack of care. But the protestors are claiming that the deaths had nothing to do with the strike and that even in the normal course such deaths occur daily because infants are brought from various parts of the state in critical stages.
The doctors also gheraoed the Director of Medical Education (DME), T Raviraj, after he, allegedly, refused to meet them.
First Published: Monday, May 09, 2011, 12:03