NORMALCY RETURNED at the Bhopal Memorial Hospital & Research Centre (BMHRC) today after a prolonged impasse of 41 days with the hospital management giving reinstatement letters to all the employees. BMHRC Director Brigadier KK Maudar handed over reinstatement letters to the employees following, which they reported on duty to their respective head of departments (HoDs).
The hospital had been virtually closed after en masse resignation of resident doctors on anniversary of gas disaster — December 3. Other employees followed suit and, ultimately all the patients undergoing treatment at the hospital were shifted to other hospitals.
The impasse was resolved only after Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh intervened and asked the BMHRC Trust chairman Justice A M Ahmadi to restore normalcy at the hospital, taking back all the employees after they meet all the formalities as suggested by the hospital management.
The agitating staff had, then, submitted formal application for reinstatement of service and an apology for the prolonged impasse at the state-of-the-art hospital constructed for medical care of gas victims.
The staff was initially demanding resignation of Justice Ahmadi and working trustee Aziz Ahmed Siddiqui from the Trust and director general of the hospital Dr Indranil Mitra.
After political leaders and some prominent citizens prevailed upon them to give up on their ‘unreasonable’ demand, they stopped making it but then the Trust became adamant on formal application for reinstatement of service and an apology in the proforma decided by the Trust.
{{/usCountry}}After political leaders and some prominent citizens prevailed upon them to give up on their ‘unreasonable’ demand, they stopped making it but then the Trust became adamant on formal application for reinstatement of service and an apology in the proforma decided by the Trust.
{{/usCountry}}The staff and those mediating between the Trust and the agitating staff felt that the words used in the apology letter were ‘humiliating’ and till Thursday, when the staff ultimately called off their agitation, deadlock had persisted on draft of the apology letter.
Ironically, more than 10 days were lost in deciding the text of apology letter and the staff came around signing apology letter on Thursday after some words were changed and a few were dropped from the text of apology. Something, which could have been done earlier without allowing the matter to reach the Prime Minister’s Office.