Health minister asks protesting resident docs to call off strike over NEET PG counselling delay

NEW DELHI: Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Tuesday held a meeting with a delegation of protesting resident doctors and urged them to call off their strike over delay in NEET PG counselling in the larger interest of the public.

Following the detailed meeting with the delegation of the Federation of Resident Doctors' Association (FORDA), he said all requisite steps are being taken by the government and a suitable reply with respect to the EWS report will be submitted to Supreme Court before the scheduled date of hearing on January 6.

"Our resident doctors have been protesting for the last few days over the delay in NEET PG counselling. I held a meeting with a delegation of the protesting doctors at Nirman Bhawan to resolve the issue,? the minister told PTI.

We are not able to do the counselling because the matter is sub judice before the Supreme Court. The government of India will submit a reply to the apex court before the scheduled date of hearing on January 6. We request the court to expedite the issue so that the counselling can be started at the earliest," he noted.

Mandaviya also expressed gratitude to the resident doctors and health care workers over the exemplary work done by them during the Covid crisis.

Intensifying their stir over the delay in NEET-PG 2021 counselling, a large number of resident doctors on Tuesday protested on the premises of Centre-run Safdarjung Hospital, even as police personnel were deployed to ensure maintenance of law and order.

The protest, a day earlier had taken a dramatic turn, as medics and police personnel had faced off in streets, with both sides claiming several persons suffered injury in the ensuing melee.o

Hspital services could slow down as stir escalates after police crackdown

Doctors’ bodies in several hospitals, including AIIMS, have called for boycott of work in non-emergency wards and therefore, .edical services in Delhi could be hampered for at least two days as several doctors’ organisations on Tuesday extended their support to the ongoing strike, to protest the delayed college allotments after the National Entrance cum Eligibility Test, or NEET, postgraduate medical exam.

On Tuesday morning, resident doctors’ associations at multiple hospitals of the city, including the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, gave calls to boycott work in non-emergency wards. Reports suggested that doctors at major government-run facilities like the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, Safdarjung Hospital and Lady Hardinge Medical College would also be on strike.

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