Patna, Sept 19: Work at Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) remained affected for the third consecutive day today due to the junior doctors' indefinite strike even as the state government took a serious view of it. Strongly disapproving the strike by junior residents, medical education secretary Afzal Amanullah warned the agitating doctors that they would be debarred from applying for future government jobs if they failed to call off their stir forthwith in the larger interests of the patients.
"It is unfair on the part of the junior doctors to stop work on flimsy grounds. If they continue to indulge in such irresponsible acts, the government may consider debarring them from completing the post-graduate course.... They have no right to hold the patients to ransom," he said. Amanullah, however, admitted that junior doctors of the six government medical colleges in the state were often manhandled by anti-social elements. But it was "not a reason strong enough" to stop work at frequent intervals causing hardship to the patients.
The Junior Doctors' Association (JDA), which called for the indefinite strike protesting against the manhandling of three junior doctors by some anti-socials in PMCH campus, said the stir would continue despite the government threat. "We are not asking for any favours. We are just seeking security and availability of emergency drugs in the hospitals so that lives of critical patients could be saved," JDA president Gauhar Alam said.
Alam claimed that services in all the departments of PMCH were badly affected by the indefinite strike. Bureau Report