PATNA, 17 November 2004 — Patients suffered hardships as striking doctors in Bihar vowed yesterday not to return to work until the government acts to end a wave of killings, kidnappings and extortion bids. The doctors took action across Bihar last weekend after a 42-year-old medic who had refused to make a 500,000-rupee ($11,000) extortion payment was shot dead in his house by three attackers.
The killers had turned up at the doctor’s house claiming they needed medical treatment, a witness said. When he appeared, they opened fire, killing him and his helper on the spot and fled.
“We cannot relent, the criminals for this crime must be arrested,” S.P. Singh, secretary of the Bihar state branch of the Indian Medical Association, told reporters.
Due to the strike, emergency wards at government hospitals were in chaos. Patients, many of them critically ill, were receiving treatment only from nurses and orderlies.
Doctors were refusing to provide even emergency treatment in the caste-ridden backward state of 85 million in eastern India.
