Resident doctors resume strike against delay in NEET-PG counselling

Resident doctor of three Centre-run hospitals in Delhi, Ram Manohar Lohia, Safdarjung and Lady Hardinge hospitals, resumed their strike against the delay in NEET-PG 2021 counselling after a brief pause on Friday. They boycotted all services, including emergency. The strike has been resumed as the government had made a 'false promise', said the protesting doctors.

As the counselling of NEET PG 2021 batch has already been delayed by eight months, there is an acute shortage of resident doctors countrywide, they noted. The agitation was called for by the Federation of Resident Doctors' Association (FORDA). Following the health ministry's assurance to expedite court hearing and fast-track the counselling process, resident doctors suspended the agitation for a week on December 9. However, they wrote to Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Wednesday informing the decision to resume the strike.

"The plight of overburdened and exhausted resident doctors seems to have fallen on deaf ears of the authorities who do not seem to be concerned about the shortage of healthcare workforce due to non-admission of fresh batch of resident doctors. With the threat of third wave of COVID-19 looming large, the best the authorities could have done was to expedite the counselling and subsequent admission process - instead, there is inaction and lack of urgency in the matter. Hence, as informed earlier, resident doctors are left with no choice but to go for withdrawal from all services (routine as well as emergency) in healthcare institutions, 17th December, 2021 onwards. The onus of this unfortunate situation affecting healthcare services is on the authorities," FORDA's letter read.

We had been waiting patiently since the agitation was put on hold, said the functionaries of Safdarjung Hospital's Resident Doctors' Association

"However, once again, no action was taken by the ministry since one week, which is in stark contrast to its fake promises and false assurances," they said.

"With the imminent threat of third wave of COVID 19, it is evident from the lackadaisical and ignorant attitude of the authorities that the healthcare, plight of overburdened doctors and suffering of poor patients is not of any importance to them at all," the letter added.

"Due to the irresponsible behaviour, the academic year of 45,000 NEET PG aspirants is almost wasted with the super-added ripple effect of shortage of resident doctors to combat the impending third wave of COVID-19 in all hospitals across the nation," Dr Anuj Aggarwal, general secretary of Safdarjung RDA, said.

The authorities do not seem to be concerned about the shortage of manpower in healthcare, said Dr Sunil Duchania, RDA president at Lady Hardinge Medical college.