Private doctors in Saurashtra, Kutch return to work

Rajkot, March 10 (IANS) Nearly 2,800 doctors who run private clinics, who went on a token strike Monday in the Saurashtra-Kutch region of Gujarat, returned to work Tuesday sporting black bands to protest what they termed as harassment from civic authorities in the drive to ensure safe disposal of bio-medical waste.

The municipal authorities have been carrying out checks to find out clinics and hospitals not disposing of the bio-medical waste properly. Doctors say officials are harassing them in the name of the drive.

'Doctors in the Saurashtra-Kutch region arrived in Rajkot Monday night for an emergency meeting to chart the course of action for the agitation launched by the Rajkot chapter of the Indian Medical Association (IMA). We have decided that all physicians would return to work in their clinics and hospitals Tuesday wearing black bands to protest unnecessary fines by the municipal authorities despite adhering to the bio-medical waste disposal rules,' Atul Pandya, spokesman of the Rajkot chapter of IMA, told IANS.

He said that municipal authorities do not even know what comprises bio-medical waste. They were just randomly going about in the towns and cities of Saurashtra and Kutch imposing fines on doctors for what they described as non-disposal of medical waste in private clinics and hospitals, Pandya said.

Civic agencies across Gujarat have taken up the drive following the seizure of 100 tonnes of bio-medical waste in warehouses of Ahmedabad and Surat in the past fortnight. The seizure came after the Hepatitis-B epidemic in Modasa town of north Gujarat.