THRISSUR: The house surgeons at the Thrissur Medical College Hospital (MCH) continued to be on strike for the second day on Saturday raising various demands.
The strike paralysed the functioning of one of the biggest hospitals in the district which is a lifeline for thousands of poor patients in three districts.
Though the patients already admitted in the wards were being attended by senior doctors, the newly-admitted patients remained deprived of the benefits of the health facilities after junior doctors left the intensive care units (ICU), critical care unit(CCU) and labour room duties on Saturday in response to the call given by the association of house surgeons in order to pressurise the hospital authorities to consider their various demands.
The striking medicos have many grouses out of which the most important is the delay in appointing phlebotomists and setting up a facility to collect blood sample from patients.
According to them, the house surgeons are forced to do the work of nurses after the authorities stopped the service of already-appointed phlebotomists and entrusted the work with the house surgeons.
The appeal of the hospital administration to call off the strike and return to work on humanitarian grounds also failed to yield any result.
Besides, the hospital authorities held a conciliatory with the striking medicos seeking a little more time to appoint staff to collect blood samples from patients, but the medicos did not yield to the demand of the authorities and went ahead with the strike.
Initially, the resident doctors had not paralysed the functioning of causality, emergency and surgery wards. On Saturday, they decided to boycott the ICU, CCU and labour room duties. A large number of medicos also staged a sit-in at the hospital.