"We will hold a joint meeting of all employees and doctors Thursday morning to decide whether to return for providing emergency services," Dr Dhurba Prasad Singh, Head of the Emergency Department and coordinator of the high-level struggle committee at the hospital, said.
The emergency ward of the oldest and largest hospital in the country has been providing just basic health care through medical officers after even the registrars and consultants joined the strike Monday. The registrars and consultants joined the strike after some pro-Maoist employees and their outside allies manhandled Dr Singh Sunday night. "I have nothing to say against these so-called pro-Maoists as vice-chancellor (of National Academy of Medical Sciences) Dr CP Maskey has been protecting them," Dr Singh had said.
NAMS VC Dr Maskey, Registrar Dr Bishwa Raj Joshi and Rector Dr Shree Krishna Giri, and Director of Bir Hospital Dr Dirgharaj RC were all appointed by then Health Minister Giriraj Mani Pokharel a year ago.
Secretary at the Ministry of Health and Population Dr Praveen Mishra on Wednesday claimed that the deadlock has been broken. "The ice has been broken and I am told that registrars and consultants have already returned to emergency services since evening (Wednesday)," Dr Mishra said. However, no registrars or consultants were found at the emergency in the evening when myrepublica.com contacted the hospital and a medical officer said that registrars and consultants don´t have duty hours in the night.
Meanwhile, the ministry has started the legal process to tackle with the NAMS management by seeking clarification from them within 24 hours. Health Minister Umakanta Chaudhary had met Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, who is the chancellor of NAMS, Tuesday evening to seek his support against the NAMS management. "We have been consulting legal experts and will start process to fire them if we find their explanations unsatisfactory," Dr Mishra revealed.
Chaudhary had on Saturday called the VC, Registrar and Rector at the ministry and issued a two-day ultimatum to resolve the problem or resign. The Residents´ Association of NAMS (RAN) had then slammed the ministry on Sunday accusing it of trying to divert the focus of the strike by seeking resignation of the management.
"We have never asked resignation of the management and have nothing to do with who runs the management. We just want implementation of our agreement reached with the management on August 31," RAN spokesperson Dr Arbin Joshi had said.
The ministry called a tripartite meeting after the two-day ultimatum expired Monday morning but the meeting failed to yield results as the management claimed that all demands were met while the residents maintained that they were not. Chaudhary again called the NAMS management Tuesday afternoon to discuss the scenario but Dr Maskey, who had issued notice at the hospital Monday declaring all the demands of RAN were already met, insisted that the situation was ´normal´.
Registrar Joshi, on the other hand, had acknowledged that the situation is really serious and offered his resignation to provide an way out even as the others refused to budge during Tuesday´s meeting while the minister had decided to fire Director of Bir Dr RC after the meeting.
RAN launched the protests demanding the NAMS to implement the August agreement in which NAMS had agreed to meet the residents´ demands including raise in monthly stipend, more duty rooms and upgradation of shabby duty rooms and other facilities.
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