Setback to Medical Strike – AIIMS & MAMC Doctors to Resume Work

New Delhi. Resident doctors of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) & of Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC) have today called-off strike and decided to resume duties from tomorrow to avert a direct confrontation with the Supreme Court.

They, however, will continue to support the anti-quota agitation waged by medicos against the government proposal to introduce 27 per cent reservation to OBCs in elite educational institutions.

Sources said this decision was taken during a General Body Meeting of AIIMS Resident Doctors' Association, hours after the apex court ordered medicos to return to work immediately.

They said the GBM felt that the Supreme Court has left them with no option but to resume duties from tomorrow. PTI

Resident doctors of Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC) have also decided to resume work from tomorrow.

This decision was taken during a meeting of resident doctors of the college, sources said.

Meanwhile the Health Ministry has hardened its stand and is ready with termination notices to the striking medicos if they do not return to work by 9 AM tomorrow .

"We are hopeful that they will call off their strike by tonight and in the eventuality they did not join duty, tomorrow 9 AM we are sending termination notices", Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss told reporters here.

The termination format was ready and the government had already given them notice, he said.

Ramadoss, who visited AIIMS, Safdarjung and Ram Manohar Lohia Hospitals here earlier in the day, however, said the feeling was the doctors would withdraw their strike today and most of them were turning back to work.

While in AIIMS all the strikers wanted to resume work, Resident Doctors in Safdarjung Hospital have disassociated from the strike. In RML 60 per cent of doctors have come back, he said.

He said simultaneously the government was planning to recruit retired doctors for a period of one year and extendable for another one year.//

"We will be requiring faculty for the new six AIIMS institutions. We hope to recruit nearly 2,000 retired doctors for these six institutions", he said

(Source:PTI)