Esma breaks docs' strike

TNN / Dec 20, 2007, 01:20 IST

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The medicos described the turn of events as 'satisfactory' though the home minister did not give them any written assurance.

HYDERABAD: Junior doctors called off their strike late on Wednesday night after over three hours of talks with home minister K Jana Reddy at the Secretariat. They will resume duties from Thursday.
The medicos described the turn of events as 'satisfactory' though the home minister did not give them any written assurance. It is a major climbdown for the doctors as they had insisted they would not resume duties until their five demands, including arrest of two MIM MLAs, were met.
Earlier in the day, the government invoked the Essential Services Maintenance Act (Esma) to put pressure on the medicos to end their strike, but they refused to budge.
By issuing a GO, chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy gave his nod for invoking Esma against the junior doctors, banning strike for a period of six months with immediate effect. Esma covers junior doctors, internees and post-graduate students of government medical and dental colleges and government hospitals under the medical education department.

But according to official sources, the CM before leaving for New Delhi on Wednesday, directed the officials not to implement GO Ms No 423 and wait till the evening.
Earlier, health minister Galla Aruna Kumari held talks with the doctors and appealed to them to call off their agitation. But the doctors refused to heed and said they had lost faith in the government. They put up a new demand that the women who attacked the junior doctor at Government Maternity Hospital, Nayapul, be arrested and demanded a written assurance on their safety. The minister refused to give any such commitment. At this stage, IG intelligence N Aravind Rao and senior police officers met and offered to provide armed constables at the six government hospitals in the city by evening. This forced the medicos to rethink and they agreed to hold a meeting with home minister K Jana Reddy. They agreed to call off their stir after the marathon talks.

During the talks, Jana Reddy assured them that armed police personnel would be deployed at seven hospitals and their security concerns would be addressed. However, the minister did not give any written assurance on the security issue. "We did not want to stretch the issue, so we called off the strike," a representative of the junior doctors, G Raju told 'TOI'.
During the talks, the doctors had dropped many of their earlier demands, including arrest of the two MIM MLAs. "We understood that the government was reluctant to arrest those who were involved in the assault on Dr Kamakshi at the maternity hospital. Hence the demand was dropped," Raju added.

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