NEW DELHI, July 10: Health care services remained crippled for the second day today as the 70,000 employees belonging to groups `B', `C' and `D' at all government hospitals and dispensaries in the city stayed away from work.In addition to the routine OPD services, work at the operation theatres was paralysed. At the central government-run Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, for instance, only 10 surgeries were performed during the last 48 hours, against at least 50 that are taken up everyday.At the Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital in east Delhi, similarly, patients from the remote villages of Uttar Pradesh had to be turned back despite having a confirmed date for surgeries. Diagnostic services like x-rays, blood and pathological tests, laundry, kitchen and sanitation was missing.The Joint Council of Health Services that represents these employees has threatened to go on an indefinite strike from July 20 to press for their demands.Their current phase of agitation ends tomorrow. At a time when the threat of diseases like cholera and dengue looms large over the Capital, such a move by the employees could turn the situation serious as the necessary health care infrastructure needed to tackle the challenge may just be missing.Dr C.P. Singh, medical superintendent of the RML Hospital, however, insisted that the administration at his hospital was making sure that the basic health care and the treatment of those already admitted at the hospital was not affected. About the incident of the strikers' act of littering the hospital corridors with medical waste, he said he had obtained an legal injunction from the court to avoid such a happening.Meanwhile, the agitating employees staged demonstrations outside the health ministry headquarters at Nirman Bhawan and shouted anti-government slogans. While the employees assert that they have given sufficient time to the government to resolve the issue, the health ministry disagrees. The government meanwhile had announced yesterday that the group of ministers set up to look into the agitating employees' demands (for better pay and more perks) would meet on July 13.
