The Municipal Corporation Doctor’s Association, which consists about 7,000 doctors and other medical staff too, pleaded that either the Delhi government or the Centre should take stock of the situation to bail out the cash-strapped Corporations from the financial crisis so that salaries of all employees can be paid immediately. The letter was handed over to the deputy CM Manish Sisodia.
The government, in return, informed to go through all legal aspects to take over the health services coming under the jurisdiction of the BJP-ruled civic agencies. A total of eight major hospitals and hundreds of small heath centres fall under the MCDs’ jurisdiction in which nearly 7,000 doctors, 13,000 nurses and thousands of other staff are employed.
“As the association has requested for their immediate rescue, we have taken it seriously. Its true that the medical staff are reeling severely and their on-going strike has hit medical services, we too want a permanent solution,” said a government spokesperson.
Handing over a letter, doctors’ association president R R Gautam, stated that they have been “forced” into this situation solely due to the indifference of the administration at all levels namely by the Corporation, Delhi government and the Centre. “In view of the precarious financial situation of the MCDs, health services (except public health) may be taken away from the Corporation and may be considered for being taken over by the Delhi or Central government as a permanent solution to our problems,” the letter said.
“Repeated representations have been sent to LG and MCD authorities but there has been total apathy and neither of them have shown any interest in resolving our issues and they do not appear to have any clue or will to solve this recurring problem,” the letter added. The association, through its letter, also alleged that the Corporations are “giving lame, false and misleading excuses” for non-payment of salaries as the MCD managements were “working for their personal gain and political motives”. The North MCD has six major hospitals — Bara Hindu Rao hospital, Kasturba hospital, Giridhar Lal Maternity Hospital, Maharishi Valmiki Infectious Diseases hospital, Balak Ram hospital and Rajan Babu Institute of Pulmonary Medicine and Tuberculosis. The agency also has 15 polyclinics, eight obstetrics units, 33 dispensaries, 79 maternity and child welfare units, seven chest clinics, 11 mobile clinics, six school healthcare clinics and three postmortem examination centers, said the plea.
The EDMC has one major hospital, Swami Dayanand hospital apart from one respiratory diseases hospital, eight maternity homes, 22 maternity and child welfare units, one polyclinic, one leprosy clinic, seven dispensaries, two chest clinics, eight mobile dispensaries, two school healthcare clinics and eight mobile medical units.
HC issues notice on doctors’ strike
The Delhi HC on Wednesday issued notice to the government and others regarding an indefinite strike by Municipal doctors and nurses since January 29. A division Bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath also sought responses from the North and East Municipal Corporations by February 10 on a PIL that called the strike as “arbitrary and illegal”. Those issued notice regarding the strike by doctors and nurses of hospitals and dispensaries run by the North and East Municipal Corporations are the Municipal Corporation doctors association, resident doctors association and nurses association.