from Daijiworld's special correspondent in Panaji

Panaji, May 17: Donning white aprons and with stethoscopes around their necks, the resident doctors, interns and students of Goa Medical College in Goa on Wednesday took to the streets forcing the college hospital (GMCH) management to rely on para-clinical staff to do the routine.

In the bargain, the services at State-government-run GMCH were partially affected as routine operations had to be cancelled. The 24-hour-long token strike is called to extend support to agitating students over the police `excesses on protesting doctors in Mumbai.

While 180 resident doctors along with 100 interns and 300 students of GMCH went on a token strike, the hospital management had to cancel several operations scheduled for the day.
 
"All emergency cases are being attended to, OPDs are being run by consultants and regular rounds of all wards are taken with the help of para-clinical staff," GMCH medical superintendent Dr Rajan Cuncolienkar stated.

"There are around 100 consultants who are working to ensure that all cases are attended to. We are not going to allow this strike to affect hospital services," Cuncolienkar said adding that Resident doctors, who are on strike are backbone of the hospital services".

The Goa Association of Resident Doctors (GARD) took out a protest rally in the city condemning the "brutality" on the agitating doctors in Mumbai.

"Right now we are agitating against police action... We will chalk out our programme against the Centres proposed reservation policy in coordination with the All India Association of Resident Doctors and Indian Medical Association (IMA)," said GARD public relation officer, Paresh Dessai.