STRANGELY IT took more than 18 days for Omar led coalition to wake up to the miseries faced by commoners because of the strike call given by the junior doctors.
During this period, hundreds of scheduled operations were postponed and senior doctors add a hey day by candidly referring the needy to private establishments run by millionaires.
The government finally woke up to the situation and meekly reverted some doctors manning the Government Medical College, back to health department and at the same time suspended some using university guidelines as fulcrum.
Not only this, government even went ahead and came out with an advertisement for filling the vacancies thus created.
One fails to understand why the powers that be decided to ignore the demands raised by the striking medicos which related to anomalies in pay band as claimed by the striking doctors.
Earlier, the finance minister talked with the media saying that the government was seriously conceding the demands of the striking doctors and a decision would be taken soon raising hopes that some compromise formula would be worked out and would be announced.
However, the government took a hard stand on Friday (October 23), late night dislocating fifty odd doctors, reverting some back to health department and suspending other post graduate students citing university rules.
Interestingly, 70 per cent of those dislocated belong to Jammu division. It may be out of place to mention here, that the government of the day reads this as an agitation initiated by the doctors belonging to Jammu division which was later taken up by Kashmiri counterparts.
The course taken up by the coalition is likely to boomerang as in all likelihood wherein the government had announced that appropriate measures would be taken before October 31, 2009, but despite assurances has gone for retaliatory measures accusing the young medicos of not having patience and proceeding ahead with the strike.
Though the prolonged strike has invited the wrath of the gullible public and left them to the mercy of God and the government of the day sticking to its guns distorting the already striking health services, will better sense prevail on the young Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and the striking doctors, so that the situation could be resolved without adopting divergent stands.
Meanwhile, taking serious notice of the problems faced by the people in different institutions of the health services due to strike by the Junior Doctors Associations of Jammu/Srinagar, the following actions were taken by the government:
Dr Neeraj Sharma (Medicine), Dr Irfan-ul Shamas (ENT), Dr Dhirender Singh (Surgery), Dr Masood Rashid (Anesthesiology), Dr Anchal Kotwal (Surgery), Dr Ikhlas (Pediatrics), Dr Pritpal Singh (Medicine), Dr Suhail Pediatrics), Dr Sheikh Yasir Islam (Medicine), Dr Irfan (Ortho), Dr Zulfikar Ali (Medicine), Dr Majid (Psychiatrics), Dr Balvinder Singh (Orthopedic), Dr Dilawar (Ophthalmology), Dr Javed (SPM), Dr Narinder (Medicine), Dr Mahpara (Gyne), Dr Sanjay Fotedar (Medicine), Dr Nawaz (Gyne), Dr Nidha (Medicine), Dr Sandeep Koul (Surgery), Dr Bashir (Gyne), Dr Anirudh Kaul (ENT), Dr Ankush (Blood Bank), Dr Asim Rathore (Radio Diagnosis) and Dr Mehraj-ud-din (Dermatology).
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The assistant surgeons who were reverted back from medical education department to health department includes Dr Kulsum, Dr Adaresh Bhagat, Dr Neelofar, Dr Haroon Salaria, Dr Sudhir Sabharwal, Dr Shugufta, Dr Bilques, Dr Rajiv Gupta, Dr Mumtaza, Dr Anjumnoor and Dr Masrat.
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Further Dr Satinder Singh working in district Kathua has been placed under suspension.
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Those registrars and demonstrators who have been reverted back to health department includes Dr Anayat (Registrar Medicine) Dr Parvez (Registrar Anesthesiology), Dr Mudasir (Registrar Surgery), Dr Imran (Demonstrator Physiology), Dr Gurdev Singh Rana (Registrar Surgery), Dr Sandeep Bhat (Registrar Surgery), Dr Rajesh Bhagat (Registrar Medicine), Dr Gagan Bali (Registrar Surgery), Dr Satish Parihar (Registrar Surgery), Dr Ravi Parihar (Registrar Pediatric), Dr Sushil Kumar Sharma (Registrar Medicine), Dr Arshid Bhat (Registrar Radiology) and Dr Ashwani Sharma (Registrar Surgery).
In another development, government decided to make fresh appointments of demonstrators and registrars and made advertisement asking deserving candidates for this purpose to walk in interview on October 26, 2009.
Peeved over the 18 days long indefinite strike of junior doctors resulting in to miseries being faced by the inconsolable patients, a social activist from Jammu, Sukesh C Khajuria went ahead and faxed an urgent letter to the Chief Justice of Jammu and Kashmir High Court seeking the intervention of the state high court and urged for the conversion of the said fax as Public Interest Litigation (PIL).
In the letter, Khajuria has submitted that in view of the illegal strike of the doctors the public at large is suffering badly and the government is watching the whole drama as a mute spectator and except issuing warnings through media, nothing concrete is done to end the stalemate and the ultimate casualty is the poorest section of the society which has been left to the mercy of the almighty.
The letter further states that though health services in the state had been declared as essential services and no employee can go on strike but who cares for rules in state of J&K where corruption and non-governance has been ranked at serial number two in a survey conducted by Transparency International.
The letter has also citied article 21 of the constitution of India which guarantees protection of life and personal liberty and the Apex Court has held ‘that word life does not mean mere animal existence but a healthy/dignified life’ and the state is duty bound to provide best health care facilities to ameliorate the hardships of the ailing community.
The letter further seeks punitive action against the agitating doctors who have dared to paralyse the health services rendering thousands of patients helpless.
The letter prays to the chief justice that the same may be treated as a PIL and people friendly directions may kindly be issued to restore the health services in the state.
