NIMS doctors to continue strike

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, NOV. 13. Resident Doctors of the Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) have decided to continue their strike for the fifth day on Wednesday after rejecting a plea by the Faculty Association to end their agitation.

Senior faculty members held a 90-minute-long meeting with all available resident doctors on Tuesday evening and sought to impress upon them that the NIMS administration had met many of their demands. On the central issue of beefing up security, they assured their full support in persuading the authorities to improve matters.

Among those who attended the meeting were the Dean of NIMS, Dr. S. Mohandas, the Faculty Association president, Dr. S. Venkataratnam, the joint secretary, Dr. Y.S. Raju, and the treasurer, Dr. N. Satyanarayana.

Members of the NIMS Resident Doctors Association immediately held a meeting, where a vote was taken whether to continue the strike or call it off. Without disclosing details of the poll, the association president, Dr. Praveen Reddy, said it was decided to continue the strike and take a fresh ballot tomorrow morning, when more doctors would be present.

NIMS authorities, who had taken a tough stand on the strike by preparing themselves to invoke Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), contended that they had conceded all demands of resident doctors, but the latter were raising new financial demands after launching the strike.

Listing out the demands that had been met, they said four persons had been arrested in connection with the assault on a nurse and a doctor on Friday night, three security personnel suspended, private security guards posted outside intensive care units and a committee with representatives of the faculty and resident doctors constituted to inquire into the incident.

Denying the charge that doctors were raising fresh demands, Dr. Praveen Reddy said they were only asking for scrapping the monthly tuition fee of Rs. 4,500 introduced last year in spite of the assurance by the Director, Dr. Kakarla Subba Rao, that no fee would be levied. He said resident doctors had been pleading against it since the last nine months.

He made it clear that the doctors would join duty only after they were satisfied with the security arrangements in the hospital. He criticised the administration for taking no action against `lax' security personnel when attendants of another patient assaulted the staff on October 19.

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Section  : Southern States
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