SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Nov 5: Senior residents of Shahid Nirmal Mahto Medical College Hospital (SNMMCH) Dhanbad continued the boycott of OPD and indoor services even on the 4th day today and announced to stop their emergency duty from November 10 in view of their pending honorarium payment.
The agitating doctors were scheduled to boycott emergency service from today but deferred as superintendent Dr AK Baranwal had gone to Ranchi to attend the monthly meeting of the health department. As the superintendent returned without allotment from Ranchi, infuriated Senior Residents announced an emergency duty boycott along with OPD and Indoor from November 10.
“We will wait for our honorarium payment till November 9. From its next day, we will begin a boycott of our emergency duty,” said Dr Abhishek Kumar, one of the senior residents of the hospital.
Senior residents of SNMMCH began an indefinite pen-down strike (boycott of OPD and indoor services) on November 2 for the payment of their honorarium which is pending for the last three months.
Senior residents were hoping that the superintendent would get the allotment cleared during his Ranchi meeting on Friday. But when he returned today with empty hands, they announced to intensify the agitation.
A senior professor of the medical college said that in the annals of the 60 years of Patliputra Medical College Hospital (now SNMMCH), no doctors in any section had to go on strike for even four days for payment of salary. Whenever such a situation appeared in the past, either the state headquarter sent the allotment or the hospital authorities managed the crisis by talking to doctors. But now, the senior residents have been left alone to struggle.
A senior authority of the hospital said that the allotment process takes time but it would come soon.
