Patients leave city hospital as doctors, staff start strike

Patients are leaving Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College Hospital as officers, nurses, staff and a section of physicians began an indefinite strike on Monday demanding full implementation of the eighth national pay scale.
The hospital at Eskatan Garden Road, having about 650 beds, 126 doctors and 825 officers and staff, is one of the popular non-government hospitals in the capital.
The agitators began the strike as part of their movement for the past two weeks after the hospital authorities lodged a case on March 2 with the Ramna Police Station against a number of leaders of the movement, the agitators claim.
Eighteen of the accused appeared before the chief metropolitan magistrate court on Monday seeking interim bail and all but the hospital’s officer-staff cooperative society general secretary Md Ziaul Haque were granted bail, Shafiuddin Ahmed Bhuiyan, a junior officer of the hospital, who got bail, told New Age.
The agitators took position at the main entrance of the hospital since morning and chanted slogans to press home their demands.
They did not allow new patients to be admitted while a huge number of the patients left the hospital, a number of officials and doctors said.
The doctors and employees, however, continued their limited medical services to the admitted and emergency patients.
Most of the beds of different wards were found vacant.
Md Milon of Banaripara upazila town in Barisal told New Age that he was taking his uncle Rezaul Karim, 52, to another hospital as they were not getting proper treatment.
Humayara Begum of city’s Dhanmondi shared the same experience and said that she was taking away her daughter-in-law from the hospital for another one.
The agitators alleged that present director of the hospital after taking charge about two years ago gave undue privileges to a few doctors, officers and staff and stopped regularisation of jobs and regular promotions.
They alleged that the director, without giving the salary and benefits of the national pay scale announced in 2015, stopped the employees’ regular increment about nine months ago and those who protested at his acts were transferred to different districts.
The hospital director, Brigadier General (retired) Showkat Ali taking to New Age claimed that none of the doctors were on the strike but a few officers and staff were forcing others to join their strike.
He said that though his hospital was a non-government institution, it always followed national pay scale. 

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