Over 70 medical students from other parts of the world, including China and Russia, who have been inte-rning at Andhra Medical College (AMC) for one year have been deployed to the King George Hospital (KGH) to tide over the crisis due to the junior doctors’ boycott of emergency services at vital intensive care units of the hospital.

All hospital staff, who had gone on leave, have also been asked to immediately join duty. Hospital authorities said that the medicos’ protest was not halting any services at the KGH which is the only major government general hospital for people from Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam districts in north Andhra.

The medicos resorted to a boycott of emergency services after the statement of the medical and health education minister, Mr Kondru Murali Mohan, who hails from Srikakulam district, that government cannot agree to their demands. The demands include a hike in stipend from the existing Rs.19,000 to Rs.30,000.

Speaking to this newspaper, KGH superintendent Mr P. Shyam Prasad said that nearly 350 junior doctors were participating in the strike for the last 50 days. They had boycotted emergency services at the hospital since 2 pm on Friday.

Authorities had arranged nearly 270 alternative staff including AMC professors, ENT hospital staff and even nearly 70 student doctors from other parts of the world at the KGH to tide over the crisis. While denying reports of deaths due to the strike, Mr Prasad admitted that outpatient number was decreasing in the last few days because of the protest in the 1037-bedded KGH.

On the other hand, leaders of the junior doctors including their leader from AMC, Dr Kalyan Sitarammaiah, maintained that healthcare services were crippled at the KGH due to the absence of nearly 500 medicos. On Saturday, they protested by putting their aprons, books and even stethoscopes for sale at the venue of the protest on the KGH premises.

Meanwhile, two patients including a 65-year-old man died while undergoing treatment at the KGH here on Saturday. Kin of the deceased alleged that the two died due to lack of medical staff at the emergency wards. When contacted, the KGH superintendent maintained that the two patients died not because of the junior doctors strike. “Normally eight to 20 patients die every day while undergoing treatment. We made all arrangements for providing better medicare to the in-patients,” Mr Prasad said.