Kupwara: Hundreds of patients at the District Hospital Kupwara had no one to look at, as doctors of the hospital are on strike against manhandling of a colleague by a Sub Divisional Magistrate in Pulwama some days back.
Patients including new born babies were left ‘at the mercy of God’, as people put it, ‘for no fault of theirs’.
“I reached here at 9:30 am but none cares for peoples trauma,” a woman who claimed to have travelled 16kms to have a check up of her new born baby.
Another patient from Langate said that her wife was in pain so they rushed to the hospital and since morning are waiting for doctors to ‘check on patients’.
“Who is responsible if any untoward thing happens to patients. Will doctors accept the responsibility or should people go and thrash that SDM. Why should people suffer,” rued an angry attendant at the medical facility.
A senior doctor told INS that they had ‘given Govt an ultimatum that the SDM who misbehaved with a senior surgeon in Pulwama should apologise if not then the government should attack an officer who has no manner to behave with a doctor.
“Doctors should be given respect not assaulted upon,” the doctor said.
The doctors also said that they are on ‘pen down strike today upto noon and won’t check any patient’.
“We will see if Govt intervenes in the matter or we will go for continuous strike from tomorrow onwards,” another doctor said.
At District hospital Ganderbal and Baramulla a token strike of two hours was held, against an SDM manhandling a senior doctor in District pulwama during inspection.
President of Doctors Association Kashmir Dr Suhail Nayak had called for the strike against the the sub divisional magistrate Zainapora for allegedly misbehaving with a senior consultant, surgeon at Zainapora Shopian in south Kashmir.
Dozens of doctors assembled at District Hospital Baramulla in northern part of kashmir on wensday staged a protest inside hospital premises demanding immediate action against SDM Shopian.
The angry doctors while talking with INS, said that we register this protest against the “repeated incidents of humiliation”to doctors across Kashmir by civil officers, however added that if the action is not taken in 72 hours, the government will be responsible for the consequences,as after that we will intensify the protests.
