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Health Secretary invites doctors for talks

CUTTACK: Even as chaos and confusions reign in all the three government teaching hospitals of the State due to week-long cease work agitation by junior doctors, the Health Secretary has invited a delegate of striking doctors for a discussion on Wednesday.

Worried over the crisis in SCB medical college and hospital here as the junior doctors’ strike entered the seventh day on Tuesday, medical college principal P K Chinara and hospital superintendent Prof Trilochan Sahu rushed to Bhubaneswar in the afternoon to meet the Health Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey.

“We apprised the Health Secretary of the hospital situation and he in turn, discussing with the Health Minister, has invited a delegate of the striking doctors for a discussion at Bhubaneswar on Wednesday,” Mr. Sahu said, after returning from Bhubaneswar in the evening.

Earlier in the day, the striking doctors gheraoed the medical college principal for about an hour in the morning.

They urged the principal to negotiate with the Government on their behalf saying that the two rounds of discussion with the DMET N K Mohanty had not yielded any result. The striking doctors however, insist that they have been demanding hike in their remuneration in a peaceful manner and the Government should at least take a note of it. Meanwhile, the health services in the premier referral hospital of the State deteriorated in view of the boycott of duties by nearly 200 junior doctors for last seven days. “The hospital has recorded a fall in outdoor and indoor patients over the past week. There has been a 20 to 30 percent decrease in the admission in the hospital over these days,” Mr. Sahu said.

Patients continue to approach the private nursing homes due to non-availability of adequate doctors, said a hospital source.

The hospital recorded as many as 12 deaths on Monday, the source added.

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