After threatening the state government with an agitation in support of the stir started by the medicos in the state, government doctors affiliated to the Tamil Nadu Government Doctors Association (TNGDA) finally plunged into action with a day strike. As a result health services in government hospitals in Tamil Nadu were adversely affected. The government doctors were protesting the government's move to allow private medical colleges.

The most badly hit were the outpatients section and specialised services, despite the measures taken by the state to counter the strike.

Health Minister Semmalai visited government hospitals in Chennai to see the steps taken by the hospitals to provide uninterrupted medical services to patients.

The dean of the Government General Hospital, Dr P Vijayalakshmi, claimed that about 80 per cent of the doctors had come for duty.

"All senior professors and about 60 per cent of assistant surgeons attended duty today. The OP, emergency services and inpatients were all taken care of", she said. The dean said about 10 doctors registered with the employment exchanges were recruited for the hospital by the Directorate of Public Health.

A Madurai report said members of the TNGDA, including assistant surgeons and civil assistant surgeons, fully responded to the one-day strike call.

All the district headquarters hospitals and public health centres were severely hit by the strike.

According to the dean of the Government Rajaji Hospital, 660 doctors did not turn up for work today. However, they managed the inpatients and outpatients with the help of 76 senior civil surgeons who were not on strike and 15 lecturers of the medical college.

The dean, Dr Balakrishna Rao, said there was no need to recruit doctors nor had any unemployed doctor turned up for employment.

Meanwhile, government hospital sources said the number of inpatients admitted into government hospitals in the southern districts had come down by 25 per cent and the number of outpatients who came for treatment also dwindled.

Besides more than 1,000 patients got themselves discharged sensing trouble in the government hospital, the sources said.

A Coimbatore report, quoting district collector N Muruganandam, said the one-day strike had not affected medical services in the government hospitals in the district.

The collector said there was no fall in the number of doctors attending to patients. This was due to the fact that additional number of doctors had been deployed from primary health centres, ICDS and corporation, besides private practitioners.

Muruganandam said 103 doctors out of the sanctioned strength of 184 in the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) did not turn up for duty today. However, steps were taken to bring in more number of doctors, including 93 from other hospitals.

Hospitals in Tirupur, Mettupalayam, Udumalpet, Pollachi, Avinashi, Valparai and other places also functioned normally, he claimed. Since senior surgeons were not participating in the strike, the necessity to refer cases to private hospitals did not arise, he said.

The central prison hospital also functioned normally with two doctors attending to the inmates, the collector said.

However, the TNGDA sources claimed that more than 90 per cent of the doctors joined the strike. Dr Prakasam and Dr Muthurajan, President and general secretary respectively of the TNGDA , claimed that apart from few doctors on the verge of retirement who reported for duty the strike was total. They further added that the emergency meeting of the TNGDA recently had decided to go on an indefinite strike from May 21 if the government did not drop the privatisation move.

Reiterating that association members were ready to hold unconditional talks with the government on the issue, they asked the authorities "not to play with the lives of patients by appointing doctors listed with employment exchanges, who were not specialised in any field."

The health authorities yesterday had directed hospitals and health centres to discharge patients who were recuperating or did not require hospitalisation.

The Health department had threatened to invoke the provisions of the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) against striking doctors and said that 100 new doctors would be recruited for each district in the state if the doctors went ahead with the stir.

It can be recalled that medicos in the state have been on strike for the past three weeks demanding hike in stipend, reduction in fees, MCI recognition to 79 courses in medical and dental colleges in the state besides asking the state government not to give permission to private, self financing medical and dental colleges in the state.