CHENNAI: Scores of government doctors went on a hunger strike on Tuesday seeking the State government’s intervention in securing release of their colleague who has been imprisoned in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, following a complaint by a moneylender.
Hospital services were affected for the second day due to the agitation and Assistant Professors and paramedical staff had been deployed to compensate shortage of hands.
More doctors pursuing post graduation and students of MBBS, joined the fast at the Madras Medical College.
Over 1,000 doctors sat in protest in the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital campus.
Scores of doctors (PGs) from Orthopaedics department went on a hunger strike, while others decided to join their peers from Thursday, if bail is denied to M Sudheer, a senior professor with the Orthopaedics department of Madras Medical College.
Speaking to Express, R Sudhakar, a doctor pursuing PG in orthopaedics said, “the professor’s bail plea is coming for hearing on Thursday in Lucknow. Earlier twice, bail was denied. If bail is denied on Thursday, then the entire orthopaedics department students will go on an indefinite fast till our professor is brought back safely,” he said.
The government should take steps to secure the senior professor, who has served for government over two decades. We have also made a call to other medical colleges, Sudhakar, who is also the secretary of MMC students council, said.
The Tamil Nadu Government Doctors’ Association also has decided to join the strike on Wednesday, MMC students council said.
Meanwhile, the doctors said, a police personnel has been sent to Uttar Pradesh to bring him safely to Chennai in case he gets bail on Thursday. They should grant him unconditional bail, since he is a government servant, the doctors added.
M Sudheer was arrested from the hospital and lodged in a jail in Lucknow, following an alleged money dispute with a local lender. The doctor had borrowed `20 lakh for his children’s education and for building a house in 2011.
Other medical college students wore black badges expressing their solidarity with striking doctors and worked on Wednesday.