Patients faced a harrowing time as doctors and nurses in state-run hospitals continued their strike for the second day on Tuesday against the recommendations of the state’s sixth pay commission pertaining to non-practising allowance and pension benefits.
The Joint Government Doctors’ Coordination Committee (JGDCC), accompanied by the nursing staff staged a protest outside Mother and Child Hospital. With the nursing staff also on strike, emergency, Covid, post-mortem and medico and vetro-legal services were paralysed. Only the Covid vaccination drive went on uninterrupted.
Outpatient and inpatient department services, elective surgeries and other non-emergency services remained suspended as over 400 doctors posted at the civil hospitals in Ludhiana, Khanna, Jagraon, and 10 community health centres joined the protest.
Patients demanded resumption of services saying that private hospitals were unaffordable. “At private practices, doctors charge anything between ₹250 to ₹500 for a checkup. The government and the doctors should think about the poor and end this impasse,” said Ranjit Singh, a resident of Field Gunj.
“With nurses and doctors busy raising slogans, there is no one to attend to my father who is lying in the emergency ward,” said the irate son of a patient.
{{/usCountry}}“With nurses and doctors busy raising slogans, there is no one to attend to my father who is lying in the emergency ward,” said the irate son of a patient.
{{/usCountry}}16 test +ve for virus
Sixteen patients tested positive for the coronavirus disease in the district on Tuesday.
Deputy commissioner Varinder Sharma said, “So far, 87185 patients have tested positive for Covid, of which 84,933 have recovered, while 162 cases are active.”
One Covid patients is on ventilator support. The district’s death toll count stands at 2, 090. No black fungus)case was reported.