Andhra government steps up efforts to end junior doctors' strike

Hyderabad: With even the emergency medical services getting severely affected in hospitals in the state, Andhra Pradesh government today intensified efforts to end the ongoing strike by junior doctors demanding hike in stipend.

However, neither the government nor the junior doctors are willing to climb down from their respective stands resulting in a deadlock till late this evening.

While the junior doctors are firm on their demand for enhancement of stipend, the government isn't ready to concede this.

The cabinet sub-committee comprising Finance Minister A Ramanarayana Reddy, Medical Education Minister Kondru Murali Mohan and Major Industries Minister J Geeta met here this evening and discussed the issue and renewed its appeal to the striking junior doctors to call off the stir in the interest
of suffering patients.

Later, Murali Mohan and Geeta held talks with the doctors in a bid to break the deadlock but till late in the evening nothing materialized, government sources said.

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On the other hand, television channels reported that at least nine persons died in different teaching hospitals in the state since last midnight due to non-availability of emergency medical care as a result of the junior doctors' strike.

The Medical Education Minister, however, refuted the reports and said the deaths were "routine".

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