Health services in hospitals attached to medical colleges in Delhi were hit on Saturday as resident doctors and students continued their anti-reservation strike.
Resident doctors in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and Safdarjung hospital did not report for duty on Saturday, paralysing the functioning of the two premier medical colleges, hospital sources said.
The striking resident doctors and students in AIIMS also raised slogans against Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh.
They said resident doctors in Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital, Maulana Azad Medical College and Lok Nayak Jaiprakash Hospital are also on a one-day strike called by the Indian Medical Association on Friday. However, emergency services in these hospitals were not affected due to the strike as they are being manned by senior doctors, the sources added.
"We want rollback of the proposal to reserve 27 percent of the seats to OBCs," Vinod Patra, a member of the resident doctors' association, told PTI.
Meanwhile, senior doctors said they are also supporting the agitation by medical students and a decision whether to join the strike would be taken on Monday.
"We are with them. We are watching the situation. Normally we do not go on strike as it causes incovenience to patients," K K Handa, general secretary of AIIMS faculty association, said.
Condemning the police action against 'peacefully demonstrating' medical students, the IMA had, on Friday night, asked the doctors' associations of different medical colleges and affiliated hospitals in Delhi to go on a 24-hour strike with immediate effect.
The doctors body also called for a 'total medical bandh' in the capital next Monday.
Complete coverage: The reservation issue