JOIN USI was supposed to go for a checkup today at Swami Dayanand Hospital, but I have to postpone it since the doctors of municipal hospitals are on strike,” said Tanya Doval, who broke her foot in an accident.
“I met with an accident on January 18 and doctors had put a cast for three weeks as I got a hairline fracture on my fifth metatarsal. But I can’t go to see my doctor for routine checkup due to the ongoing strike. People are suffering why can’t the government and municipal corporations get their act together and find a solution to this mess,” added Tanya, who lives in east Delhi’s Dilshad Garden.
Like her, many patients have either been avoiding visits to municipal hospitals or been turned away by the hospital administration.
“Only emergency services are running at hospitals whereas doctors have not been examining patients at the OPDs,” said Dr R R Gautam, president of Municipal Doctors Union.
Hospital staff joined the strike on the fourth day on Saturday demanding timely payment of salaries.
Doctors, nurses and other hospital staff unions held a meeting on Monday to decide their next plan of action. “We will continue the agitation till the authorities find a permanent solution to this mess,” added Gautam.
The medics said they were too suffering.
“What if we are class 1 employees but we do need monthly salaries for daily household expenses. We also have families. We can’t work without salaries,” said an agitating doctor.
Doctors, nurses and paramedical said they went on strike as the last resort.
“We regret to having taken this step as it put the general public to a lot of inconvenience. The situation has become worse with the city government and the municipal corporations indulging in blame game over the issue of distribution of salaries. So we were forced by them to join the strike,” he said.
“For the first three days, we didn't join the strike because we thought the government and corporations will find a solution to this impasse. But nothing happened and we had no choice but to strike work,” he added.