Trouble for patients as docs to boycott OPDs
Tribune News Service
Shimla, August 18
Himachal Medical Officers Association (HMOA) has decided to boycott OPD services and elective surgeries indefinitely from tomorrow onwards.
“We have decided to boycott OPD services and elective OTs from tomorrow onwards. Our protest will continue till the time our central bodies ask us to discontinue our protest,” said Dr Vikas Thakur, secretary, HMOA. The doctors are protesting the brutal rape and murder of a resident doctor at a medical college in Kolkata.
Meanwhile, the faculty of the IGMC, Shimla, and Tanda Medical College has also announced that OPDs and elective OTs would remain suspended on Monday. The Resident Doctors Association (RDA) of IGMC, Shimla, and other medical colleges, who are spearheading the protest, are also skipping the routine services. It’s yet not known whether the medical colleges will start offering OPD services from Tuesday onwards.
With doctors skipping routine services from primary health centres to medical colleges, patients are going to face a lot of inconvenience. Even though emergency services will continue as usual in all health facilities, the patients are bound to face a lot of problem, especially in IGMC where patients come for treatment from across the state.
Apart from justice for the victim, the doctors here are demanding immediate implementation of Himachal Pradesh Medicare Service Persons and Medicare Service Institutions Amendment Act, 2017, to safeguard the rights of health workers. Besides, the resident doctors, especially the women doctors, have been demanding more CCTV cameras at sensitive points, more security personnel and separate duty rooms for women staff.
The hospital administration, along with RDA representatives, has taken stock of the facilities at the hospital. “We have looked into their concerns and will plug whatever loopholes we have come across,” said Dr. Sita Thakur, IGMC principal.
