AT THE MERCY OF DOCTORS: Eleven month-old Ranjit from Warangal, with his grandmother outside Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad on Monday. Photo: Satish H .

HYDERABAD: Seventy-year-old Kotamma of Sanga Reddy, suffering from severe inflammation of leg, could barely stand as she waited at Gandhi Hospital on Monday, the third day of junior doctors' strike.

"We went to the emergency ward but we were asked to wait outside and that is what we have been doing since morning," said Kotamma, who was diagnosed of suffering from septicaemia and referred to Gandhi Hospital. Her worried daughter Kondamma said they had no idea when the doctors would see them nor were they in a position to go back to their home 40 km away.

Like Kotamma, Sailaja, had no clue how long she would have to wait for doctors to operate on her 11-month-old son Ranjit's twisted feet. "We could not even meet the `Pedda Saru' (Chief Surgeon) today," said the daily wage labourer from Warangal.

With about 240 house surgeons, post-graduate students staying away from duty at the hospital, the regular 250 doctors are running the hospital's 26 departments with the help of 31 doctors deputed from elsewhere.

"Priority is being given to provide round-the-clock service at the emergency and casualty, acute medical care, ICCU and labour room," said the Hospital Superintendent, A.Y. Chary.

The house surgeons and post-graduate students normally assist the senior doctors in various wings.

"Now in the absence of junior doctors, we are running the show with doctors pooled in from Gandhi Medical College and the District Medical and Health Department," Dr.Chary said.

"If the strike continues for more days, then elective surgeries will have to be postponed and more doctors from district hospitals roped in," he said.

The strike and the incessant rain during the past few days seemed to have impacted the turnout of outpatients. As against an average of 1,500 to 2,000 outpatients a day, some 1,000 patients visited the hospital on Monday. Though no patient was turned away, they had to wait longer today, admitted a doctor.

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