The Hindu : Striking medicos organise massive rally

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 10, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Striking medicos organise massive rally

Junior doctors taking out a rally in Hyderabad on Friday. Photo: K. Ramesh Babu.

HYDERABAD, JAN. 9. The striking junior doctors on Friday led an impressive procession from Bagh Lingampally to Indira Park here even as their agitation entered the 29th day. Activists of various political parties and other groups also participated in the rally.

The procession threw traffic out of gear at the busy RTC crossroads as the demonstrators stopped and raised slogans. The junior doctors also squatted on the road as the procession neared Indira Park where the police had set up barricades to prevent its onward journey. Activists belonging to some student organisations danced and sang songs ridiculing the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu. Several medicos from colleges outside the city were also present.

The procession culminated into a public meeting, which was addressed by the All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary, V. Hanumantha Rao. He said the demand of the junior doctors for withdrawal of user charges in Government hospitals was a socio-economic issue. The other demand to cancel permission to private medical colleges sanctioned by the Government, he said, was an issue, which had cost the Congress leader, N. Janardhan Reddy his Chief Ministership then. Bowing to pressure from the TDP, which was in the Opposition then, Mr. Reddy was replaced after he had sanctioned eight private medical colleges. But, Mr. Naidu remains unquestioned although he had accorded permission to more number of medical and dental colleges.

Mr. Rao said the Congress Government would take the permission of the AICC and institute an inquiry into the indiscriminate sanction of these colleges if elected to power in the State. The Government would also quash the G.O. 90 permitting collection of user charges by hospital development societies.

N. Narasimha Reddy of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) complimented the junior doctors for taking up an issue (user charges) which the political parties ought to have. He expressed his party's support to the agitation. The CPI State Secretariat member, Aziz Pasha, deplored the conditions in Government hospitals. P. Madhu, CPI(M) State committee leader, said the junior doctors voiced the demand of agricultural labour in villages who could not afford to pay for treatment.

Gade Diwakar, State Secretary of CPI-ML (New Democracy), alleged that user charges were being collected as per World Bank conditions.

Earlier in the day, a cardio thoracic surgeon and the first president of the A.P. Junior Doctors Association, P. V. R. Bhaskar Rao, put forth his argument in support of the junior doctors filing a public interest litigation in the High Court.

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