Lady dies as doctors sit on strike over Pay Commission recommendations

The emergency and OPD services at major Delhi hospitals were severely affected as around 15,000 resident doctors went on strike protesting against the seventh Central Pay Commission (7th CPC) recommendation of reducing the Non-Practicing Allowance (NPA) for the resident doctors.

Some of the prominent hospitals where services were majorly affected are Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Hospital, and Safdarjung Hospital. The services at AIIMS, however, remained unaffected as the doctors in AIIMS are not a part of the agitation.

LNJP Hospital also reported a death of an elderly lady identified as Sapra Begum (70), due to lack of timely treatment because of staff shortage. Suffering from respiratory problems, she was brought at a critical state to the hospital and was advised to visit AIIMS.

The death, however, did not deter the thousand odd resident doctors who marched from Lady Hardinge to Jantar Mantar to press on their demands.

The resident doctors are protesting against the reduction of NPA from proposed 40 per cent to 20 per cent in the 7th CPC along with demerging it from the basic pay structure. The resident doctors threatened of a mass strike from June 1 if there is no roll back on the following recommendations.

Dr Balvinder Singh, Ex-President, FORDA, said: “Today the state of affairs of the resident doctors is tough. Not only does he working overtime but also is at risk due to various infections he can get while dealing with patients. He does not get any risk allowance for it. The least we expect from the government is that, if you cannot maintain the status quo, at least do not reduce it.”

In the past also, resident doctors in city hospitals held a strike over lack of security and poor working conditions which caused a lot of trouble for the patients.