ANTI-RESERVATION agitation gathered momentum with junior doctors declaring 24-hours strike on Friday. The students and junior doctors of Moti Lal Nehru Medical College crippled the emergency services at the Swaroop Rani Nehru and SN Children Hospital.
About 200 medical college students including students of the Allahabad University and MNNIT also staged dharna on the SRN campus. The agitating medicos were in no mood to accept the promise offered by the government of increasing seats for students outside the quota.
The students and junior doctors decided to go on 24-hour strike on Thursday evening following the reports that a few medical students who were observing hunger strike became serious and were rushed to hospital in Delhi. Angry over the reports, the students forcibly struck OPD services and closed all the emergency wards including surgical emergency and the general ward. The fresh admissions stopped and only serious patients were provided treatment by the senior doctors and consultants at the SRN Hospital.
The wards wore deserted looks with only ward sisters and EMOs changing the drip and occasionally giving medicines to patients. However, many patients were also turned away by the senior doctors.
{{/usCountry}}The wards wore deserted looks with only ward sisters and EMOs changing the drip and occasionally giving medicines to patients. However, many patients were also turned away by the senior doctors.
{{/usCountry}}The students of MLN Medical College, MNNIT and Allahabad University under the banner of Youth For Equality and United Front of Medicos Against Reservation staged dharna in the SRN campus. Holding banners with message ‘Don’t reserve give us what we deserve’ and ‘Char Ankh Do Kaan Mat Karo Desh Ko Badnam’ the students shouted angry slogans against Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh. The students were also angry over suppressing the reports of their agitation by media in other parts of the country.
“The agitation is still on. Today atleast 300 doctors in Mumbai got arrested over this issue. But the only thing is that media was no longer giving priority to this issue, which was very sad. The common public must know that it is in the interest of everyone. If the quota is successfully implemented the future of thousands of bright students will be in dark. Everyone need to protest the quota proposal,” said Junior Doctors Association president Dr Neeraj.
He claimed that even the senior doctors were also against reserving seats for OBCs. They feel that the selections in the sensitive profession like medical and engineering should be made purely on the basis of merits, he added.
Meanwhile, the students of MLN Medical College have decided to form a human chain from medical college to Subhash crossing on Saturday to protest against the OBC quota in premiere institutes. The students of Allahabad University and MNNIT may also join the human chain, said JDA president, Dr Neeraj.
“Our 24-hour total strike may also continue for one more day if the Indian Medical Association decided to observe state-level strike on Saturday,” he added. The JDA general secretary Dr GS Joshi said people should cooperate with our movement. The reservation would badly affect the lives of millions of youths and it need to be protested at every level, said vice president Apoorva Mittal and Dr SK Shukla.
Meanwhile, over hundred members of Allahabad Medical Association (AMA) and junior doctors took out a torch procession from blood bank to DM’s office on Thursday night to protest against the OBC reservation in higher educational institutes. The doctors’ procession reached DM’s office and terminated into a public meeting. Under the banner of AMA, the city doctors led by AMA president Dr AK Bansal and secretary Dr VK Gupta handed over a memorandum to ADM city in the absence of the DM. The memorandum was addressed to the prime minister.
Addressing the meeting, Dr Bansal condemned brutal lathi-charge on the peaceful agitators in Mumbai and said the doctors of the country would not relent their struggle against reservation till the central government decides to withdraw its move. He urged the common people and the student community in general to intensify the agitation.
AMA secretary Dr VK Gupta and JDA president Dr Niraj warned the government not to divide the people on the basis of caste and religion. They said the reservation is damaging even for the OBC people. It would widen the gap between the upper and OBC. If the government wants to give reservation, it should give it to economically poor but meritorious students, they said.
Varanasi
MORE THAN 50 undergraduate and postgraduate students of Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS) at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) on Friday moved to the national capital to extend their moral support to the medicos against anti-reservation agitation there. Raising slogans like ‘Chalo Delhi’ ‘Arjun Singh Sharm Karo’, ‘Don’t divide society on the basis of caste’ and ‘Kendra Sarkar Murdabad’, the medicos under the banner of Resident Doctor’s Association (RDA) started for Delhi by Shiv Ganga Express from Varanasi Cantonment Railway Station late in the evening today.
Kanpur
Work at all six hospitals under GSVM Medical come to a grinding halt amid anti-reservation strike by medicos and seniors of medicos have extended silent support to striking medicos. On Friday only six new patients were admitted at LLR hospital on humanitarian ground.
However, medicos here got some solace as the majority of GSVM Medical College professors including several department heads have tacitly supported the anti-reservation strike by medicos, that on Friday reached to the second day with all Out Patient Departments were remained closed and only extremely critical patients on humanitarian grounds were admitted at the emergency ward of the LLR hospital by the striking medicos.