Junior Doctors' Strike In Telangana Enters Second Day, Healthcare Services Partially Disrupted

As part of the strike, junior doctors boycotted outpatient services, elective surgeries and ward duties.

Over 6,000 junior doctors in government hospitals across Telangana continued their indefinite strike for a second day on Tuesday, impacting normal healthcare services across the state. Despite talks held with Telangana Health Minister C. Damodar Raja Narasimha on Monday evening, which failed to resolve the deadlock, the junior doctors remained firm in their decision to strike.

The strike led to the boycotting of outpatient services, elective surgeries, and ward duties by the junior doctors. However, they continued to attend emergency duties to ensure critical patients received care.

The Telangana Junior Doctors Association (JUDA) reiterated that the strike would persist until their demands were addressed. Among their key demands are the establishment of a green channel for timely stipend disbursement, honorarium for superspeciality senior residents, deployment of police personnel to prevent violence against doctors in hospitals, construction of new hostels, adequate faculty at medical colleges and the construction of a new building for Osmania General Hospital (OGH), according to IANS.

While the government has shown a positive response to addressing some of the demands, they appealed to the striking medicos to ensure that healthcare services were not severely impacted.

Over 1,000 junior doctors at Gandhi Hospital and OGH in Hyderabad boycotted their duties and staged protests holding placards in support of their demands.

TJUDA president Dr. G. Sai Sri Harsha told IANS that security at hospitals is their main demand. He highlighted that although the government had agreed in 2019 to deploy a Special Protection Force (SPF) to provide security to doctors, no action had been taken.

In response, the Health Minister directed Director of Medical Education (DME) N Vani to meet with the head of the home department to discuss deploying the SPF.

Meanwhile, the Congress-led government was formed in Telangana in December last year.