Doctors on mass casual leave, health services hit in Himachal

Shimla, March 7

Health services were severely hit across the state today as doctors in all government hospitals, barring medical colleges, proceeded on mass casual leave.

“Over 90 per cent doctors went on mass casual leave in health facilities ranging from Primary Health Centres (PHCs) to district hospitals,” said Dr Vikas Thakur, Secretary, Himachal Medical Officers Association (HMOA). “In medical colleges, doctors supported our demands by wearing black badges,” he added.

With doctors going on mass casual leave, patients faced a lot of inconvenience across the state. “Doctors took care of emergency services and indoor patients. Only outdoor patients were affected by the mass casual leave,” said Dr Thakur.

Over 2,600 doctors have been on a pen-down strike from morning till noon for more than two weeks, demanding the restoration of Non-Practising Allowance (NPA) for new appointments and career assured progression scheme. Also, the doctors have been demanding timely promotions and amendment in the post graduate policy.

The HMOA office-bearers are also sore over the fact that a committee was formed in 2016 to prepare seniority list of doctors, but the committee had not done the job entrusted to it even after eight years.

“We started our protest by wearing black badges about 50 days back, but the government has not paid any heed to our demands which are very reasonable,” he said. With the deadlock continuing, doctors are planning scale up their protest from Monday. “We will chalk out our future course of action during the meeting of our central committee shortly,” said Dr Thakur. On Saturday, the doctors would revert to pen-down strike from morning till noon.