Owing to the delay in the NEET-PG 2021 counselling, the resident doctors of three central hospitals in the national capital have gone on a strike and suspended the OPD services. The three hospitals where the resident doctors have suspended the OPD services include the Ram Manohar Lohia, Safdarjung and Lady Hardinge hospitals in the city, news agency PTI reported. Earlier, the Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA) had urged doctors to go on strike and suspend the OPD services at government hospitals in the wake of a long delay in the NEET-PG 2021 counselling.
The doctors’ association had given the nationwide call for strike and protest against the government’s move to postpone the NEET-PF counselling by more than four weeks. The Supreme Court is currently hearing the plea which has challenged the EWS-quota notified by the central government in the year 2019.
In a formal statement, the Resident Doctor Association (RDA) at the RML hospital told the hospital administration that the resident doctors have suspended the OPD services from November 27 onwards to mark their protest against repeated delays and postponements in the NEET-PG counselling.
The FORDA in a released statement earlier had said that the resident doctors have been tirelessly fulfilling Covid-19 as well as non-Covid duties that have been entrusted to them for the past one and a half years. With the next Supreme Court hearing slated for January 6, 2022, the doctors don’t see any respite from their already delayed NEET counselling, it added.
The Resident Doctors Association of AIIMS, New Delhi also came in support of their brethren and urged the central government to intervene in the matter and expedite the counselling process. It rued the fact that the counselling for the admission into the PG medical colleges was postponed for more than two months after the result of the entrance exam had come out.