Resident doctors may have called off their strike, but backlogs and upcoming holidays mean that it will be a long while before OPDs return to their sluggish normal
The strike by 3,400 doctors was called off on Friday night after an assurance from CM Devendra Fadnavis. Pic/Suresh Karkera
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It was both a stern ultimatum of legal action and an assurance of demands being met that pushed the 3,400 members of the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) back to work on Saturday morning. The doctors had been striking since last Monday following an attack on a doctor at Sion's Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital and Medical College, Sion, by relatives of a 60-year-old patient, who died because of a chronic kidney disease.
However, in the five days that they were on strike, the backlog of patients at government-run hospitals seems to have increased, resulting in longer queues. At Vile Parle's HBT Medical College and Dr R N Cooper Municipal General Hospital, more than 30 people were waiting outside the OPD at 12.45 pm. With the doctor-in-charge not showing up till as late at 2.15 pm, the numbers kept increasing. Among those in line was Raju Kushalkar, a driver who'd accompanied his eight-month-pregnant daughter Raveena for a check-up. "There are 22 people ahead of me in the line — of course it is troublesome," he said.
Rajendra Jadhav was turned away at Balasaheb Trauma Centre as there were no doctors
Twenty-one-year-old Rajendra Jadhav was hoping for immediate treatment. With major abrasions and gashes on his left leg after having coming off worse in a bike accident on Friday morning, Jadhav says he'd gone to Jogeshwari's Balasaheb Trauma Centre for treatment immediately after the accident, but was turned away since there were no doctors around. "They did not even do my dressing — I had to get that done at a local pharmacy." He came to Cooper at 3 PM on Friday, but was asked to return on Monday (the strike had not been called off then). "I came today (Saturday) because my leg is hurting a lot. I have been waiting here for 45 minutes but the doctor still hasn't seen me," he said.
'People don't know the strike has been called off'
According to Dr Naresh Choudhary of Balasaheb Trauma Care (Jogeshwari), who was on duty at the hospital on Saturday, the number of patients visiting the centre was lesser than usual. "A lot of patients whom I dealt with today said that they had heard that the doctor's strike had been called off in passing," he said. "We usually get around 250 patients in the OPD department, but today that number is down to 100." The OPD at the center is shut on Sundays and Tuesday is a bank holiday. Choudhary estimates that the hospital will see a high patient number on Monday.
At Vile Parle's Cooper Hospital, the doctor-in-charge did not show up till as late at 2.15 pm
Dr Harshal Joshi of Cooper Hospital, a non-resident doctor, said, "We had been on emergency duty in casualty from 3 pm on Friday till 8 am on Saturday. Usually it is resident doctors who look after patients in this department, but since there were emergency cases and the resident doctors were on strike, we were called on duty."
'Everything is same as before'
According to Dr Suresh Rupnar (casualty medical officer) at Sion Hospital, not much had changed on the first day of the strike being called off.
"Everything is the same as before," he said. Sion Hospital saw a total of 158 patients who visited the OPD on Friday, with 62 total patients being admitted to the hospital till Saturday evening. Dr Avinash Supe, director of the city's municipal hospitals — Sion, KEM, Nair and Cooper — said, "All doctors who were on strike have joined back today. There was a rush but we had enough doctors to take care of patients. But I will look into the matter."
With inputs from Rupsa Chakraborty
3,400
Number of MARD members
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