Delhi: North corporation mayor to meet Hindu Rao doctors as their strike continues

Doctors from at least 12 government hospitals in Delhi have decided to either go on a two-hour pen-down strike to stop non-emergency work today or protest with a black ribbon in the hospitals treating Covid-19 patients

North Delhi municipal corporation mayor Jai Prakash will be visiting the striking doctors of Hindu Rao hospital at 11 am today. The doctors have been on strike for 22 days and on hunger strike for four days now. Doctors from the four other North Corporation-run hospitals, as well as senior doctors for the hospitals and dispensaries, who were holding off their strike, also joined in on Monday.

Doctors of Hindu Rao Hospital during an indefinite hunger strike over non-payment of their outstanding salaries, in New Delhi, on October 24. (PTI)

The mayors of North, South and East Delhi corporations protested outside the chief minister’s residence on Monday, demanding that the Delhi goverment cleared the dues of Rs 13,500 crores so that the salaries of doctors and other healthcare workers could be paid.

A statement from North Corporation late on Monday said, “He (health minister Satyendar Jain) has assured that all the dues pending of all the three municipal corporations with the Delhi government would be cleared in 10 days. So all three mayors called off their sit-in dharna.”

AAP has, however, insisted that the Central government owes the corporations over Rs 12,000 crore.

Meanwhile, amid the political row over funds owed to the corporation, doctors from at least 12 government hospitals in Delhi – run by Delhi government and the Central government – have decided to either go on a two-hour pen-down strike to stop non-emergency work between 10 am and 12 noon today or protest with a black ribbon in the hospitals treating Covid-19 patients.

“This time, we will not take the strike back even if we are paid the salaries of a month or so. We need a permanent solution, we cannot come back on the street every few months to demand our salaries. The last time we were paid was in June and that too, after our resident doctors went on strike and we joined in with a pen-down strike,” said Dr Maruti Sinha, general secretary of Municipal Corporation Doctors’ Association.