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Striking Mumbai doctors running parallel OPDs as strike enters ninth day
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Striking Mumbai doctors running parallel OPDs as strike enters ninth day
Mumbai: As the Mumbai Doctor’s strike entered the ninth day on Tuesday, resident doctors started running parallel OPDs at Bengal Club premises in front of King Edward Memorial (KEM) hospital and are also distributing free medicines to the suffering people.
The striking doctors set up makeshift clinics in the premises of state-run hospitals to provide minimum services to the needy as both the Maharashtra Government and the doctors’ body remained unrelenting.
“We are running parallel OPD for patients care. All the departments are functioning here and we are providing immediate relief to the people visiting here. We are here from 10 am to 5 pm serving the people visiting the OPDs,” said Doctor Suhas Bendre.
“Initially, when not too many patients knew of the OPD functioning, we had only 25 or so patients. But subsequently, word spread around and now we have nearly 200 patients per day. All non-governmental organisations and pharmacies are helping us and in case of emergencies, we send the patients to the main hospital,” Bendre added.
Hapless and economically weak people, who could not go to private hospitals, sought the services of doctors at these make-shift clinics.
The doctors are not only conducting diagnosis but also referring the serious patients to the hospital for better treatment.
“I came here in the hospital for the diagnosis of my child. With the opening OPDs at least we are getting the services of the doctors,” said Aruna, a local.
The strike has severely hit the healthcare services in the financial capital for the last nine days. The strike began in Mumbai with the doctors demanding more security following repeated attacks but now they have also expanded their demands to include better working conditions.
Doctors from several state-run hospitals from major cities in the State like Nagpur, Pune, Sholapur and Aurangabad have joined the agitation in a show of solidarity with their colleagues in Mumbai.
The striking doctors, undeterred by the expulsion letters and invoking of the tough Maharashtra Essential Services Maintenance Act (MESMA) 2005, have vowed to continue with their agitation.
MESMA empowers the government to arrest doctors working in state-run hospitals if they refuse to work, but the doctors say they do not come under the ambit of the act.
Meanwhile, authorities have refused to budge to the demands of doctors and issued termination notices to more than 150 striking junior doctors at the state-run hospitals in Mumbai.
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