OPD services across Odisha hospitals hit as doctors start 2-hour daily work boycott

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• Odisha doctors boycotted OPD services for 2 hours over staffing and pay issues.
• OPDs will remain closed daily from 9 am to 11 am across state-run hospitals
• Emergency and inpatient services are unaffected by the doctors' protest

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Outpatient department services across state-run hospitals in Odisha were affected on Monday morning as doctors boycotted work for two hours over a host of issues, including filling up of over 50 per cent of vacant posts.

Members of the Odisha Medical Service Association (OMSA) boycotted outpatient services from 9 am to 11 am, demanding that the government fulfill their 10-point charter of demands.

OMSA president Kishore Mishra said the doctors have been agitating since November 20.

"In the first phase, the doctors joined work wearing black badges, and from December 26, boycotted the OPD service for one hour. They further extended the OPD boycott to two hours from today," he said.

"Emergency services, inpatient care, and surgeries will remain unaffected. Now on, OPDs will remain closed from 9 am to 11 am daily, from primary health centres to district headquarters hospitals," he added.

Health Minister Mukesh Mahaling appealed to the doctors to shun agitation as the government was "sympathetically considering" their demands.

He said the state government has constituted an inter-departmental committee to examine their demands. Mishra, however, said the previous BJD government had also set up a ministerial committee, but nothing happened.

"We have no trust in these committees. We urge the CM to intervene and resolve the problem," he said.

Mishra said there are a little over 6,000 government doctors in the state, while the sanctioned strength is 15,776.

"This means that over 50 per cent of posts are vacant, which is creating additional pressure on the existing doctors," he said.

Asked about people's sufferings, Mishra said no one will be denied healthcare services as doctors will work after the two-hour boycott.

Among the other demands by the doctors are pay equal to that of central government employees, proportional restructuring of cadres across all grades, additional financial incentives for super-specialists, specialists, and diploma medical administrators, postmortem allowance and equivalent performance-based incentives.