KATHMANDU, May 10 - Resident (post graduating) doctors at Bir Hospital continued their protest by not attending to patients except at the emergency ward, as there was no conclusive outcome from a meeting held between the health ministry and the hospital management on Thursday.
Talking to the Post, Dr Gopesh Thakur, chairperson of National Academy of Medical Science at the hospital, said doctors would start working if the government arranges anesthetists at least for three days a week until it completes the formal process of adding quotas to the hospital for anesthetists.
Out of four government quotas for anesthetists, only two are occupied at present, which, according to Dr Thakur, is hardly enough to deal with emergency cases. "When there are no anesthetists, there is no use of us working," he added.
All 171 resident doctors from the category of Master of Surgery, Anesthesia Surgery, Orthopedics, General Medicine, Pathology, Radio Therapy, Radio Diagnosis, Eye, Gynecology, Pediatric and General Practitioner have stopped working at all the wards, except the emergency ward from Wednesday.
Earlier on Monday, they decided to stop working at the OPD.
The hospital, which used to carry out about 20 operations daily, has not been able to conduct even a single one in the past three months due to lack of anesthetists. About 1000 patients visit the hospital daily. The hospital has about 100 quotas for doctors. However, doctors occupying half of the quotas remain either on study leave or other types of leave regularly. -
The Kathmandu Post
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