Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Doctors should never resort to strike: Gehlot/40 patients dead as Rajasthan doctors' strike continues Govt recruits new doctors-28/12/11

Doctors should never resort to strike: Gehlot

TNN | Doctors should never resort to strike: Gehlot
06.25AM IST


JAIPUR: Chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Tuesday appealed to the doctors to return to work with a pledge to never go on strike again. Nobody would like a situation where the patients suffer but the doctors continue to abstain from work, the chief minister said, as he elaborated on his earlier statement that people might turn violent against the medical officers if the strike continues for long. "Even the doctors' family members and relatives would not like such situations when the patients wriggle in pain inside the hospital while the doctors remain outside on strike," Gehlot said.

The chief minister was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the 19th National Children's Science Congress that got underway in the city on Tuesday.

Suggesting that doctors should never strike work, Gehlot emphasised that if the medical officers abstained from duties this amounted to violence. "If they want to demonstrate against the government, the chief minister or a minister, it is understandable. Why this anger against the people? They have no right to take revenge from the patients. In Mahatma Gandhi's definition even anger is a form of violence," Gehlot said.

The chief minister said that if the doctors worked for extra hours in order to demonstrate against the government, it will get them people's goodwill. "If you have people's goodwill, the people will turn against the government. Yours demands will be met as no government can afford its people's anger against it," Gehlot reasoned.

Congress state chief Chandrabhan, on the other hand, supported chief minister Ashok Gehlot's controversial statement made in Udaipur on Monday. The ruling party president refuted the opposition BJP's allegation that the chief minister's statement was provocative and had the potential to create conditions of a class war in the society.

"The chief minister had only expressed a concern. People will not be provoked by his statement, but they could be roused by the absence of medical facilities for long due to the doctors' strike," Chandrabhan said in response to reporters' query at the party headquarters on Tuesday. He stated that the strike has created a situation where the poor were unable to get medical facilities. At the same time, he said all the deaths in government hospitals these days cannot be attributed to the doctors' strike. "All deaths cannot be blamed on the doctors, but the everyday death toll in government hospitals has definitely increased due to the strike," Chandrabhan said.

At its state-level office-bearers meeting on Tuesday, the Congress passed a proposal urging the doctors to immediately call off their strike in public interest. "Otherwise also, the medical ethics say that no doctor can turn away a patient in need of his medical expertise," said Chandrabhan, who too holds a doctor's degree. He said there were other 'humane options' for the doctors to demonstrate and demand their rights from the government.

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