The medical crisis arising out of the ongoing agitation by 4,000-odd resident doctors in Government hospitals across Maharashtra, worsened on Wednesday, as the doctors owing affiliation to the Indian Medical Association (IMA), working in private hospitals, joined the agitation at several places.
Though State Medical Education Minister Girish Mahajan claimed in the evening that the resident doctors owing allegiance to the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) had called off their agitation, the resident doctors —who have gone on “mass leave” in Government across the State since Monday – said that they had not ended their agitation as claimed by the Minister.
The Bombay High Court, which was to hear a PIl on Wednesday, a day after it had pulled up the agitating resident doctors for abstaining from duty in Government hospitals across the State, deferred the hearing for Thursday.
What came as a big boost for the agitating doctors was the support from Maharashtra unit of IMA, which has a membership of 40,000 doctors. So much so that the doctors owing to affiliation to IMA began to abstain from work in private hospital at many places.