Protesting Bihar doctors skip OPD services, threaten to intensify stir

The OPD strike is likely to persist on Thursday. It may further worsen with the doctors deciding to shut emergency services if the government did not fulfill their demands.

Poor patients across Bihar, especially from poor and marginalized families, visiting government hospitals had a harrowing time on Wednesday as the doctors paralysed the outpatient services (OPD) protesting alleged manhandling and misbehavior with doctors of Bhojpur Sadar Hospital by guards of local district magistrate (DM) Sanjiv Kumar.

Doctors holding a meeting to decide future course of action(HT Photo)

On Tuesday afternoon, Bhojpur DM had called all doctors of Ara sadar hospital to mark their attendance through video conferencing. Everyone expect Dr T Ansari followed the order. Dr Ansari later clarified that he could not go as he was on emergency duty attending patients. Other doctors too had protested against what they claimed the DM’s arbitrary style of making them mark their daily attendance through video conferencing.

“Finding me absent on the video conferencing, the DM called and rebuked me on phone. Later he sent his guards and called me to his residence. Two other doctors accompanied me. On reaching there, we were abused and assaulted by the guards,” Dr Ansari said.

The OPD strike is likely to persist on Thursday. It may further worsen with the doctors deciding to shut emergency services if the government did not fulfill their demands.

The doctors are demanding framing of a criminal case against the DM Bhojpur, formation of a medical board to assess his mental health and replacing DM’s with civil surgeons as chairpersons of the district health committees.

A joint meeting of IMA Bihar and Bihar Health Services Association (BHSA) on Wednesday held an emergency and decided to the wait for the government response to their demands till Thursday afternoon after which they will decide to intensify their stir.

The BHAS general secretary, Dr Ranjit Kumar, said that principal secretary, health, and the health minister have been apprised of their demands. “The ball is in the government’s court now. If they do not heed our demands, on Thursday doctors across state including those into private practices, will stop work, and the government will be solely responsible if the patients suffer.” The junior and contractual doctors have also extended their support to the stir.

Dr Kumar said, as on date, against the requirement of 11,373 doctors, only 2600 are rendering their services to the Bihar health services. Of this 300 of them are in administrative jobs. Bihar has 534 PHCs, 1,330 additional PHCs, 55 sub-regional hospitals, 70 referral hospitals and 36 district hospitals.

“One can imagine the pressure on doctors readily offering services at the state run hospitals. They deserve better treatment,” he said.

The Bhojpur DM has denied all allegations as baseless. He said the doctors were called for a review meeting but they refused to turn up. Instead, when the guards went to them to request for attending the meeting, they misbehaved with them and drove them away.

“We have video footages of the entire fiasco. The doctors would be proved wrong,” he said.

On the OPD strike, he said, alternative arrangements would be made with Ayush and contractual doctors.

Health minister Mangal Pandey said in the day the he is in the knowhow of the development and was trying his best to broker peace. “My officials are speaking to them and trying their best to bring out an amicable solution to the crisis,” he told reporters.

Bhojpur civil surgeon Dr Jagdish Singh said that the emergency ward of Ara sadar hospital remained unaffected. “The Ayush doctors took control of the emergency ward,” he said. However, on Tuesday, locals said a woman with critical illness had died as she failed to get medical help. Officials did not confirm the incident.