The medical and health services were completely paralyzed after Government and private practitioners boycotted the medical and health services across the State on Thursday. The agitators lamented that the medical students were badly harassed by the police and district administration in Uttar Pradesh. The private practitioners under the banner of Indian Medical Association, Uttarakhand Chapter and the government doctors under the banner of Provincial Medical Health Service Association gathered at Parade Ground, Dehradun on Thursday morning and also expressed their resentment over the Kanpur incident.
Meanwhile, patients faced the brunt of the strike as doctors did not turn up in district hospitals, community health centres, primary health centres, private clinics and hospitals across the State alleging that the administration was torturing the medical students. An irate relative of a patient, Diva Bisht in an exclusive interaction with The Pioneer expressed her plight due to the strike by the Government doctors. “We are unable to find a medical officer and not getting any treatment. The doctors are on strike and there is no one to address our issues,” she lamented, adding that the
government should take swift action for resolving the issue.
Another patient who also visited district hospital, Praveen Jain said that we have visited many hospitals in search of doctors but we are unable to find one as they are on strike. Earlier, while addressing the gathering, Dr Geeta Khanna, honorary secretary, IMA, Dehradun branch said that the government and private practitioners from Uttarakhand boycotted the medical and health services against the alleged cane charge and the police action on medical students of Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Medical College (GSVM), Kanpur on Friday last week. She stressed that the barbaric and brutal assault on medical students by the police under political pressure is a highly condemnable and shameful act.
“Some of the medical students and professors sustained grievous injuries and are badly hurt,” she lamented, adding that cane charge by is surely an arrogant, vindictive attitude and gross misuse of powers by the administration.
Echoing the same feelings, Dr Kuldeep Datta, President, IMA, Dehradun branch said that the assault demoralizes people serving in the medical field for betterment of society and has severely impacted the psyche of the medical students and practitioners throughout the country. Meanwhile, it was a matter of relief for the patients as the government doctors excluded emergency and other medical services other than OPD services in the one-day agitation in the State.