Patient care services hit as resident docs’ strike enters 2nd day

New Delhi, Dec 18: Patient care services were affected for the second consecutive day on Saturday as resident doctors of three Centre-run hospitals boycotted all services, including emergency, as part of a nationwide protest called by FORDA over NEET-PG 2021 counselling delay.Resident doctors at Ram Manohar Lohia, Safdarjung and Lady Hardinge hospitals had resumed the strike on Friday, saying the government allegedly made a “fake promise”.

They pointed out the “acute shortage” of resident doctors across the country as the counselling of NEET-PG 2021 batch has already been delayed by eight months.

On December 9, the resident doctors had said they were suspending the agitation called by the Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association (FORDA) for a week following the health ministry's assurance to expedite court hearing and subsequently fast-track the counselling process.

However, on Wednesday, FORDA wrote to Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya, informing him that it was resuming the strike from December 17.

“The plight of overburdened and exhausted resident doctors seems to have fallen on deaf ears of the authorities who do not seem to be concerned about the shortage of healthcare workforce due to non-admission of fresh batch of resident doctors. With the threat of third wave of Covid looming large, the best the authorities could have done was to expedite the counselling and subsequent admission process instead, there is inaction and lack of urgency in the matter,” it said. “Hence, as informed earlier, resident doctors are left with no choice but to go for withdrawal from all services in healthcare institutions, 17th December, 2021 onwards. The onus of this unfortunate situation affecting healthcare services is on the authorities,” FORDA’s letter read.