Patients suffer as Safdarjung stir continues for the third d

Both Madan Lal and Dr Bajpai are also general secretaries of the karamcharis’ union, leading the agitation by 3,000 karamcharis. The resident doctors number around 500.

As the agitation — which resulted after a clash between the doctors and the employees over sharing the mess — entered the third day, the 1,200 patients at the 1,500-bed hospital found little medical assistance.

The karamcharis are camping outside the gate, resident doctors are holed up inside their hostel rooms and the policemen have made themselves at home both inside andoutside the hospital.

The usually crowded corridors of the hospital are deserted, with no new patients being admitted. Even those who are still there, have been asked to leave as soon as possible. Both the karamcharis and the doctors are not willing to go back to work unless the “false FIRs” filed against their colleagues are withdrawn. While the doctors have asked for the suspension of the “hooligans” named in their FIRs, the karamcharis have asked for the suspension of SHO, Sarojini Nagar, Harcharan Verma.

“Brutal force was used when the police came to pick up five of our colleagues on Friday,” says Manoj Sharma, vice-president of the karamchari union. “We will demonstrate outside the office of the Police Commissioner on Saturday and will give him a memorandum asking for the suspension of the SHO.”

The Resident Doctors Association (RDA), on the other hand, has come up with an action plan to try and get the basic services restarted at their general body meeting on Friday. But they are adamantabout adequate security provisions being provided to them before they resume work.

“We are ready to resume routine work, excluding emergency duties,” says Dr Devdutt Poddar, president of the RDA. “Our only condition is that adequate security, including two functional PCR vans and 100 police personnel, as promised to us by the DGHS on Thursday, be deployed. The resumption of work is conditional to the effective functioning of this force.” Another resident, Dr Amit Mishra, says: “`There is no PCR van standing outside our hostel and the situation is still very volatile. There is restraint on the part of the hooligans only because there is some police presence, but we don’t think the security cover is sufficient.”