more-in Medical services in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad were paralysed for the fourth consecutive day as doctors remained on strike in protest against the assaults against their colleagues by kin of patients’, throwing treatment for the needy off balance. Speaking to The Hindu, Dr. Mohan Joshi, president of the Pune unit of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), said, “Unless we have a written assurance from the State government, providing us with the requisite security personnel, we will not withdraw the strike. If our strike is said to be in contempt of court, then the State government’s failure to provide security to our doctors also amounts to contempt of court.” Dr. Joshi said verbal assurances had been given by the State government in the past, but they did not yield any help to medical personnel. “When around 4,000 resident doctors under the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) protested in 2014 against the beating of a colleague in Solapur, we were promised that security would be provided. It appears that these promises yield nothing.” The IMA has urged the government to provide 1,100 security guards across government medical colleges and hospitals in Maharashtra to ensure that the number of relatives per patient was limit to only two. In Pimpri-Chinchwad, more than 50 doctors from the Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital (YCMH) joined the IMA in their protest today, along with several other doctors, informed Dr. Dilip Kamat, president of the IMA’s Pimpri-Chinchwad unit. Patients, with their anxious kin, were seen crowding lobbies of government college hospitals where doctors were on mass casual leave. On Wednesday, authorities at the city’s B.J. Medical College and Sassoon General Hospital had served notices to as many as 272 resident doctors, ‘expelling’ them for failure to resume duty. In response, the IMA ad called for a shutdown of all out patient department (OPD) services at all clinical establishments, with the exception of emergency ones. Nearly 500 doctors, including resident doctors, medical interns and undergraduate students are participating in the mass casual strike. “I have spoken to the Dean on the matter and apprised him of our stance. These notices serve no practical purpose as this manpower is needed and we will not withdraw the strike until our security concerns have been duly addressed,” Dr. Joshi said. In July last year, irate relatives of a deceased patient savagely assaulted two resident doctors in the Sassoon General Hospital with office equipment resulting in the doctors being compelled to undergo treatment for their injuries in the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU).

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