NEET PG 2021 counselling: Resident doctors in Maharashtra to go on strike from Friday

MUMBAI: Thousands of resident doctors will go on strike in Maharashtra from Friday to seek a resolution of the NEET PG 2021 counseling delay issue, their representatives said. The strike is likely to affect the services at government hospitals. Sanchari Pal, general secretary of the local KEM hospital unit of the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD), said resident doctors at some government hospitals were already on strike from Thursday.

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"Our fundamental demand is resolution of the NEET-PG counseling issue with a proper timeline," she said. The MARD was also expressing solidarity with its counterpart in Delhi, Pal added. "We demand action against the perpetrators involved in violence against the doctors," she said, referring to the police action against the protesting medicos in the national capital earlier this week. The FIRs registered against protesting doctors must be withdrawn immediately, she added.

In Nagpur, around 500 resident doctors at two government hospitals will "withdraw" from Out Patient Departments, non-emergency ward work, departmental work and elective services from Friday, said local units of MARD.

Resident doctors in Maharashtra have been working relentlessly during the pandemic, but with a third wave looming and delay in NEET PG counseling causing shortage of resident doctors, the serving resident doctors will not be equipped to execute their duties efficiently, said the MARD unit at the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) here.

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"It's been more than six months that we have made multiple legal appeals and have protested silently but despite working with 2/3rd of the workforce our pleas have fallen on deaf ears. "Last week even more unacceptable and shameful event occurred, where our peacefully protesting resident doctors were brutally thrashed," it said in a statement.

A senior MARD office bearer told PTI that around 350 resident doctors from GMCH and around 150 resident doctors from Indira Gandhi Government College & Hospital (IGGMCH) in Nagpur will withdraw from work from Friday.