Healers on strike: Patients suffer as doctors’ protest disrupts health services
Hindustan TimesLUCKNOW: A dejected Dulare limped out of the PAC room, clutching a stick in one hand and his wife Rekha Kumari’s papers in the other while an upset native of Bahraich was busy calculating the expenses he would have to incur for bringing his wife again for a check-up at King George’s Medical University in Lucknow. KGMU’s clerical staff, who were not part of the strike, started registration process at 8 a.m., but with resident doctors raising slogans and disrupting work, many patients in the queue left, while those already sitting outside doctors’ chambers decided to wait. On hearing the announcement and witnessing the agitation of the resident doctors, many patients left the campus, while several others sat outside the OPD block, hoping the strike would end soon. Senior doctors who were scheduled to work in the OPD had already arrived in their chambers and began attending to patients, although the absence of resident doctors slowed down the process. Meanwhile, in a show of solidarity, junior resident doctors and interns from Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Hospital staged a protest.