Hek seeks Nadda’s help to end strike in NEIGRIHMS

Shillong: Health Minister A.L Hek on Monday sought the intervention of Union Health Minister J.P Nadda in ending a week-long strike by resident doctors of North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS).
In his letter to the Union minister, Hek said, “Resident doctors of NEIGRIHMS have been on strike for the last one week and this has affected the smooth functioning of the hospital and the patients.”
“Patients coming from far flung areas of the Northeastern states are stranded in Meghalaya and are approaching me for help. The grievance of the doctors, as I could understand, is the alleged harassment of students and victimisation of doctors by the Director, NEIGRIHMS”, Hek said in the letter.
Hek also pointed out that the NEIGRIHMS director has been away from the institute for the last 10 days ‘despite being aware of the situation’.
Meanwhile, the Director
Dr. D.M Thappa on Monday met the resident doctors and faculty of the Cardiology department twice in a span of a few hours to sort out the differences.
While the first round of talks failed to break the deadlock, the second meeting lasted for four hours.
The resident doctors expressed their deep frustration at the state of affairs and mishandling of faculty of the department and other staffs.
Following the second meeting, the resident doctors issued a statement saying that the Director has tendered his apology and assured that he will sort out the problems regarding the Doctorate of Medicine (DM) examination within 48 hours. He has also assured to take up the matter of rescheduling the examination dates with NEHU after due consultation with the HoD Cardiology department, the resident doctors stated.
The Director also promised to give due consideration to the issue of allotment of quarters to the resident doctors.
Incidentally, there was no word on when the resident doctors will call of the strike. (With inputs from UNI)