Strike of doctors at CD hospital continues for day-4; patient care hit

Police assured action, services to resume soon: MS

Irfan Tramboo
SRINAGAR, June 10: The Doctors at Chest Disease Hospital here continued their strike for the day-4 following assault and manhandling of the doctors and the staff members by the attendants of a patient along with a DDC member from Srinagar.
The striking doctors said that even as an FIR has been lodged, there haven’t been any arrests made so far by the police and that they will continue to be on strike unless the accused are put behind bars.
“We seek stern punishment against those who are involved; the occurrence of such incidents needs to stop here and for that, there has to be some stern action taken to be taken by the police in this regard,” doctors said.
The strike of the doctors started on Tuesday-the day when the incident occurred-and since then, apart from emergency services, other services such as OPDs and related sections, have remained shut due to the absence of the doctors, causing inconvenience to the patients.
Earlier, it is to be noted here that the doctors and other staff members were manhandled and then threatened by the attendants of a lady after her condition deteriorated. The erring attendants, including a DDC member from Harwan, Shabir Ahmad Reshi, belonging to J&K Apni Party, allegedly interfered and did not allow doctors to perform their duties, following which the patient died.
However, on the other side, the patients reaching CD Hospital here said that they are facing hardships due to the non-availability of doctors at the OPD and that they are left with no option but to return home.
Several patients who had reached here for consultations with the doctors were seen waiting outside the hospital with the hope of someone at the end attending to them.
“I have come here from Bandipora; I reached here for a routine visit which was already scheduled, but then I came to know that the doctors are on strike; we have been put to huge inconvenience; we understand their issue, but they should also think about patients too,” said Abdul Rahim, attending his patient.
Officials told Excelsior that from tomorrow, they are expecting the OPD service to resume and striking doctors to resume their duties in the non-emergency sections as well.
“As of now, only our non-emergency services have been affected, rest, the hospital is functioning as normal; we are expecting things to return to normal from tomorrow as the police have assured us that they will arrest the accused soon,” Medical Superintendent, Dr. Saleem Tak told Excelsior.