Services at AIIMS hit as RDA strike continues

However, patients who had been receving treatment at AIIMS were taken in for their follow up consultation at their respective clinics, as 500 doctors were still on duty.

The hospital administration has put in place a contingency plan for patient care services. As part the plan, faculty-on-call in all clinical departments will physically man the in-patient wards. "Only consultants and faculites are manning the OPD, ICU and the wards.

According to an official, the hospital also had to cancel all scheduled surgeries because of the flash strike. On any given day, around 350 major or minor surgeries are conducted in the AIIMS. Out of this, 100 surgeries and nearly 200 procedures are carried out at the Dr Rajendra Prasad Center for the Ophthalmic Sciences. Meanwhile, around 1,500 appointments have been cancelled.

After four months, we have reached the AIIMS from West Bengal. Here, no one is attending our patient. We have been called on this specific date for the operation. They are neither admitting the patient nor informing us," said Bipin Das Gupta. He also added that they are forced to stay on the streets.

In another case, an attendant to a patient said that they had come to the hospitals on Friday as his father was supposed to undergo a neuro-surgery. But the doctors said that now the surgery will be conducted only after the strike is called off. We got today's date after waiting for months. Now, I don't know what wil happen, said Anurag Choubey, who had come from his village near Gorakhpur. However, we took the patient to the emergency department of the hospital but there also there are no doctors take care of our case.

"The emergency department is also not working properly. They are taking patients in from one door and sending them out from the other, asking them to go to Safdarjung hospital," he said.

The hospital, however, maintained that no emergency services, including emergency surgeries, were affected.

A member of the Resident Doctors' Association (RDA) said that they are here for training and study purposes only. As I find all consultants and faculty members are working at OPD sections, I feel there is no problem, he said.

Moreover, RDA has alleged that this is not the first instance of harassment by the chief of Ophthalmic Sciences Centre at the hospital.

"We demand the immediate suspension of Dr Atul Kumar because the 150 resident doctors at RP Centre have refused to work with him. He often humiliates them in front of peers and patients," said Dr Harjit Singh Bhatti, president of the RDA.