NEW DELHI, November 22: Resident doctors called off their strike on Sunday evening but many patients had a hard day as they were turned away by hospitals in their hour of need.Lachmi, who was in the eighth month of her pregnancy, was bleeding profusely when she was brought to Safdarjang Hospital on Sunday afternoon. But the doctors at the maternity emergency refused to admit her. Ramkishan, her husband, did not have the will or the money to try elsewhere and they left for their home in Chattarpur.When asked, the doctors there said that there is no strike in Lok Nayak and hence they should take patients to that hospital. ``Here we are not admitting anyone unless of course they are not in a position to go anywhere,'' they said.Vimla, who had been sent to AIIMS by a private hospital after she was diagnosed with dengue, was not admitted. Her husband said that doctors prescribed Crocin and sent her away while the private hospital had said that her condition was serious.Govinda whose little daughter fell down from the second floor of the house rushed with the child to DDU but was handed a bottle of glucose and advised to go to Safdarjang. There she found an angel of mercy in the head of the paediatric department who was seeing patients all alone throughout the day. Dr S. Malik said the child had an internal injury and was being attended to.Four-year-old Sonia was another patient who got a taste of her kindness on Sunday morning. She fell down and slit her tongue. She trailed her parents, Kishan and Satwanti, from department to department. At the emergency, they were asked to go to the burns unit for her tongue needed stitching. At the burns emergency, there was no doctor and the nurses were seen bandaging a little boy who had burnt his chest and stomach with hot fluid.The nurses there said that only burns cases were being taken there and laceration cases were being sent away due to the strike. Kishan took Sonia to the paediatric ward. Dr Malik, in paediatric surgery, who was the only doctor present at noon attended to Sonia.While few patients were seen coming to the emergency at Safdarjang, there was an endless flow into All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The casualty was being handled by seven doctors.Dr Bhan, surgeon and head of the orthopaedic department, who was at the casualty in the morning said the residents chose the wrong time to go on strike. The government would not be able to do anything so close to elections.They said that while they were attending to emergency cases, their absence would harm patients in the wards and other departments.Many patients were being discharged in haste. At AIIMS, Yash Agarwal a 10-year-old boy who had an operation on his hand on Friday was asked to leave on Sunday morning, though he was still in pain. It had been his fourth operation.The strike which hit Safdarjang Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and All India Institute of Medical Sciences, was suspended in the evening after an appeal by the Health Ministry which had been asked by the Election Commission against signing any agreement before the election. The doctors have, therefore, suspended their strike till after the elections, the spokesman of the Federation of Resident Doctors Associations said.
