MCHs struggle to run OP clinics

Medicos’ stir snowballing into a stand-off between medical fraternity, govt.

As the strike by junior residents or postgraduate medical students in government medical colleges across the State, boycotting all hospital services except COVID-19 duty, crosses day two, more doctors’ organisations are joining the strike and the issue seems to be snowballing into a major stand-off between the entire medical fraternity and the government.

The strike by the PG medicos which began as a nationwide protest against the inordinate and indefinite delay in the NEET-PG allotment for 2021 has not just drawn attention to the acute shortage of human resource in the medical colleges in the State, it has also highlighted the volatile situation in these institutions wherein the quality of patient care may be threatened by an unhappy and overworked workforce.

All medical college hospitals (MCHs) struggled to run the outpatient (OP) clinics, inpatient care, ICUs and emergency departments for the second day in a row on Saturday. Reports from various MCHs said elective surgeries and procedures were badly affected and that all departments were being forced to discharge patients en masse as none of the MCHs have enough staff to work.