IMA rolls back support to doctors' strike after HC's warning

Mumbai: The IMA, backing the strike of the resident doctors of the Maharashtra government hospitals, today rolled back their support to them shortly after the Bombay High Court warned them against continuing the strike.

However, it is not known as yet if the resident doctors too would follow the suit.

In its official statement, the IMA's Maharashtra chapter said their members would resume duty now as their demands have been satisfactorily responded to by the state government.

Besides the high court, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis too warned the resident doctors who have gone on a "mass leave" from Monday, of stern action if they fail to resume duty today.

The IMA, which has some 40,000 members in Maharashtra, had extended its support to the agitation on Wednesday.

Earlier today, the IMA representatives had met the chief minister at Vidhan Bhavan, where Medical Education Minister Girish Mahajan too was present.

According to an IMA member, Fadnavis told them that the security has already been provided in 16 hospitals since yesterday.

"The government is working on (providing) security to the doctors and more arrangements will be done within ten days," he quoted Fadnavis as saying.

The IMA said in a statement that there were some 10 points on which both the parties (the IMA and the government) have agreed to in writing.

"The first point stipulated that 700 the armed security personnel from the Maharashtra Police Security Corporation would be deployed within five days and rest 410 within 15 days," it said.

According to IMA, a committee under former DIG Pravin Dixit would conduct a security audit of all medical colleges and hospitals and submit its report to the state government.

It added that an other security panel comprising three resident doctors as too will be appointed in every hospital.

"The other points finalised in the meeting are setting up of an alarm system, submission of a tri-monthly security report by every government hospital and empowering police posts in hospitals to record FIRs in medico-legal cases," the statement said.

The IMA further said all the allied medical organisations (of pathologists, radiologists etc.) have also decided to call off their strike, which was organised to support the resident doctors.

Earlier, the Bombay High Court had came down heavily on the agitating doctors for taking "undue advantage of its sympathy," and had asked the asked the agitating doctors to to resume work by tomorrow morning or face action.

"If this is the attitude of the doctors, the respective hospital management can initiate suitable action against them and terminate their services," warned the bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice G S Kulkarni today.

The bench has given the agitating doctors time till 8 AM tomorrow to report back to work or else face action.

Nearly 4,000 resident doctors have stayed away from the work since Monday, demanding enhanced security in the wake of a string of attacks on their colleagues by patients' relatives at government hospitals across the state.

Indicating that the government has run out of patience, Chief Minister Fadnavis earlier told the Legislative Assembly that "enough is enough. If the doctors fail to resume work today, government will not sit quietly. We cannot leave the patients to die."