Junior doctors strike hits patients hard in Andhra Pradesh - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

A strike by junior doctors in Andhra Pradesh demanding increase in stipend entered its second week on Monday. Medial services in all the government hospitals have been affected and patients are bearing the brunt. The junior doctors are organising protest demonstrations at several hospitals and are threatening to go indefinite strike if their demands are not met. The medicos are demanding their stipend to be raised from 5000 rupees to 12, 000 rupees for house surgeons and over 8000 rupees -30000 rupees for postgraduate students. Doctors of 'Osmania Mediacl College' conducted a mock funeral of an effigy and sat on indefinite hunger strike while holding placards. They said that they were attending emergency cases in Hyderabad on humanitarian grounds. "On the humanitarian grounds only we did not boycott emergency. We still continue emergencies. We are just boycotting OP (out patient department),... and surgeries. Then we have to sit for indefinite hunger strike. So even putting our lives at stake, we are fighting for the genuine demand of ours. If government doesn't respond, we will intensify our strike and we are ready to do anything," said Shekhar Panje, a junior doctor. The Andhra Pradesh Junior Doctors Association, which led the stir, contended that the current stipend is lesser than what is paid in the other states.