The Hindu : New Delhi News : How many patients have died due to stir, asks NGO

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 31, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

How many patients have died due to stir, asks NGO

Staff Reporter

BADLY HIT: A child waiting for treatment at the Out Patient Department of AIIMS in New Delhi on Tuesday. Photo: AP

NEW DELHI: People's Action, a non-government organisation, has written to Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit demanding that she clarify her position on the reservation issue and release details of the number of patients who have directly or indirectly suffered or died for lack of medical attention at hospitals all across Delhi following the anti-reservation agitation.

The NGO has quoted press reports saying that seven deaths took place during the first week of the strike.

"There was a Delhi `bandh' called by medicos on May 25 and we have had no information of the number of casualties reported so far. It is incumbent on the State Government to reveal the number of people who have died due to the Government's mishandling of the doctor's stir," said a group coordinator for People's Action, Pankaj Gupta.

The letter also seeks an explanation from the Chief Minister for not engaging in negotiations with the protesting doctors to find means to defuse the strike.

"It is unconscionable that the Chief Minister has not found it fit to try and find a solution to this monstrous situation where the poor and the weak have to suffer such miserable treatment due to a stalemate in which they have no role," he said.

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