Safdarjung doctors go on strike, withdraw it within hours

The strike call was given by the resident doctors association after a doctor, a nurse and a hospital guard were beaten up by the relatives of a patient named Prabhu who died at the hospital yesterday afternoon. He was admitted on Friday with jaundice and low haemoglobin level.

"The patient's relatives beat up one of our nurses, a resident doctor and a guard. They held the doctor responsible for the death of the patient," Dr Chandrabhan, President of the Resident Doctors Association, said.

Claiming that such an incident had not happened for the first time, the doctors had threatened to continue their strike till the issues of security arrangements and safety of the doctors and nurses was "permanently taken care of".

However, Medical Superintendent of Safdarjung Doctor N K Mohanty later said that the doctors had ended their strike at 3 PM.

"Nearly 1,200 resident doctors, including MBBS students, are back on work. The security of the hospital and the doctors could be handed over to ex-servicemen," he said.Since there was no OPD today, services were only partially affected, hospital sources said.

Earlier in June, junior doctors, including postgraduate students, interns and junior residents of the hospital had been on strike for two days to protest against alleged lack of basic facilities.