Ctg doctors go on strike

The chamber of a consultant physician in Chittagong is unusually quiet yesterday. Consultant physicians in the city went on an indefinite strike protesting a court order sending one of their colleagues to prison for negligence in surgery. Photo: Anurup Kanti Das

Consultant physicians in Chittagong yesterday went on an indefinite strike protesting a court order that sent one of their fellow physicians to jail on charges of negligence in surgery.
The consultants remained absent from their chambers in the city even as worried patients kept waiting to consult with the doctors.
“Where will we go now as all the consultants have gone on an indefinite strike?” said Shahjahan Khan, who came to the private chamber of a consultant in the city from Satkania upazila for his grandson's treatment.
Dr Mujibul Huq Khan, president of Bangladesh Medical Association, Chittagong chapter, told The Daily Star that the doctors had called the work abstention in private chambers from the afternoon to protest what he called the case against a colleague.
Child health specialist Prof Dr Mahmud A Chowdhury Arzu, who did not render consultancy services, said, “I just abide by the decision taken by the BMA.”
He, however, said the government hospitals and the emergencies of private hospitals would remain out of the purview of the strike.
A Chittagong court on Monday sent Dr Shurman Ali to jail on charges of negligence in performing surgery on a patient.