Ranchi: Around 600 resident doctors at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences Rims ), who attend to a majority of the patients, will boycott outpatient department (OPD) services from Friday. The protesting doctors are planning to run a parallel OPD at the parking area near the hospital’s emergency ward.The doctors are protesting against the delay on part of the Rims management and the government in the implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations for resident doctors on the lines of All India Institute Of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) which was approved in July 2018. Junior Doctors Association (JDA) president Ajit Singh said: “We were supposed to get revised pay from July last year as the proposal was cleared by the general body. However, the authorities kept on delaying it on pretext of bureaucratic issues. Resident doctors will not attend OPD on Friday and Saturday and JDA will sit on hunger strike in front of the director’s office on Sunday.”JDA has been demanding pay revision for six months and its members had worn black badges to duty to push for their demands on January 19 and 20. However, they called off the protest two days after the state health secretary’s assurance that he will take up the matter with the government on a priority basis and their demands will be fulfilled soon.Around 1,500 patients visit Rims OPD on an average everyday and 80% of them are attended to by the resident doctors, which include senior residents, postgraduate students and house surgeons. Patients visiting Rims from far off places will be most affected as OPDs will not function. However, emergency services will be kept out of the strike.The resident doctors have also planned to run a parallel OPD to register their protest against the government where they will be attending to patients on the campus. “We are planning to run a parallel OPD at the parking space near the casualty ward on Friday,” said a resident doctor.Rims additional director Mritunjay Kumar Barnawal said: “I have requested the resident doctors to call off their protest. The general body meet on Tuesday approved the pay revision and it takes around three to four days in writing down the proceedings. I assure that the doctors will get their revised salaries at the earliest.”

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