New Delhi: Outpatient department services at some private hospitals in Delhi and its neighbouring cities were either shut or partially affected due to a nationwide strike called by the Indian Medical Association (IMA).
Metro Hospital Group, which runs 11 facilities across the country, including five in Delhi-NCR, kept OPDs closed at all its units.
“In support of the strike, we kept the OPDs closed at all our units. The Noida facility gets about 600 patients a day in the OPD while around 300 patients visit the one in east Delhi’s Preet Vihar. We have a total of five units in Delhi- NCR,” a spokesperson of the hospital group told PTI.
The group also has six more facilities, including in Jaipur, Vadodara and Haridwar.
Fortis Healthcare group had also pledged support of the stir called by the IMA against the National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill, 2017, which the association describes as “anti- people and anti-patient”.
In solidarity with the cause, we decided to wear black badges and display notices expressing our support. We also wholeheartedly respect and support individual choice of our clinicians who were keen to support the IMA call, the Fortis group said.
The 12-hour shutdown called by the IMA to protest against the proposed legislation seeking to replace the Medical Council of India (MCI) with a new body was called off after around eight hours, after the Bill was referred to a parliamentary standing committee.
The NMC Bill, which was tabled in Parliament on Friday, seeks to replace the MCI and also proposes allowing practitioners of alternative medicines, such as homoeopathy and ayurveda, practise allopathy after completing a “bridge course”.
Services at some other smaller private hospitals in Delhi were also partially affected.
Though there was no perceptible increase in footfall at government hospitals in the city, many patients, who could not avail OPD services at private facilities went to state-run hospitals.
PTI