The fifteen-day long strike of the resident medical doctors throughout the nation was called off on Friday morning and the doctors are said to resume all their work at noon. Dr Manish Kumar, president of, FORDA said that the strike was called off after a meeting with the joint CP last night, who gave instructions to cancel the FIR that was filed on Monday and the assurance that the court clearance of NEET PG counselling will come during the January 6 hearing.

Previously, on Tuesday, the doctors had refused to call off the strike even though Mansukh Mandaviya, the Union Health Minister had assured that the FIR would be cancelled and the government would submit its report regarding the NEET PG counselling before the January 6 hearing and ensured early counselling. 

The doctors had started their protest in November-end by withdrawing from all services including surgeries and emergencies. The strike was halted for a week on assurance of the minister and was resumed on December 17 since when services, including emergency services, across all big medical college associated hospitals have been affected. The doctors said that delay in the NEET-PG counselling had resulted in a shortage of workforce as the outgoing batch of third-year PG students had already left but no incoming batch had joined. This was overburdening the doctors and they had to work 100 to 120 hours a week, while around 45,000 NEET-PG aspirants across the country were waiting to join the workforce.

Source: The Indian Express