AIIMS resident doctors call off strike after three days

"The strike has been called off. We request the director to declare Monday a working day, so that the surgeries which were cancelled due to the strike can be conducted. We, resident doctors, want to compensate in every possible way," a member of the Resident Doctors Association (RDA) of AIIMS said.

Several rounds of meeting were held between the AIIMS administration and the protesting doctors since the incident.

The strike affected health care services at the premiere hospital for three days.

The resident doctors had been demanding that the administration suspend the senior doctor who had allegedly slapped one of their colleagues in front of patients and other staffers.

Routine surgeries were cancelled, out-patient clinics functioned in a restricted manner and patients seeking OPD consultation were sent back due to the strike.

Only the emergency and ICU services functioned.

The senior doctor Dr Atul Kumar, who heads a department at the premier institute, had on Friday tendered a written apology for assaulting the resident doctor and proceeded on leave on the directions of an internal probe panel.

Another senior doctor from the department has been made the acting chief of the centre pending an inquiry.

A doctor said thirty of his colleagues "have submitted complaints against the senior doctor. Some of them are very serious in nature. He has been accused of misbehaving with female resident doctors. Some cases of 2013 have also come to the fore".

The AIIMS Nurses Union also condemned the incident and sought an early action into the matter.

In a letter to Dr Randeep Guleria, director of AIIMS, the RDA had alleged that the senior doctor slapped a senior resident in front of attendees, nursing staff and colleagues, and that the resident doctor was in depression.

The Association said an atmosphere of fear existed in the department headed by Dr Kumar, and that nobody protested as the chief threatened to fail the junior doctors.

The RDA has written to Union Health Minister JP Nadda, who is also the president of AIIMS, seeking revocation of Padmashree and Dr BC Roy awards to Dr Kumar.

"We reprimand all his actions and request you to consider revoking his BC Roy and Padmashree awards, as we believe that he is not worthy of holding such prestigious awards," it said in the letter.