Interns continue strike at Mitford, vandalise hospital director's office
Staff Correspondent
Striking intern doctors of Sir Salimullah Medical College yesterday went on a rampage at the Mitford Hospital, forcing out patients and doctors of the outdoor department. The interns, who have been agitating since Thursday to protest inadequate residential facilities and demanding unpaid salaries for five months and payment of their salaries by the 5th of every month, brought out a procession on the campus in the morning. They then went to the office of Deputy Director Sunil Kumar Das to inform him about their demands. "As the deputy director did not pay heed to their demand, the doctors started breaking the windowpanes of the hospital director's office," AHM Saiyadul Karim Mollah, an employees' leader, told The Daily Star. The agitating interns also broke the furniture and nameplates of the accounts section and locked about 30 officers and staff inside the administrative section, the officials alleged. At this point, the third and fourth-class employees chased away the agitating doctors. Five doctors and several employees were wounded during the melee. Being chased, the agitating doctors later forced out the patients and on-duty doctors at the outdoor section in the adjacent building and locked the section. Policemen, who were stationed there since morning, later unlocked the outdoor section as well as the administrative building and rescued the confined officers and employees. Normalcy was restored at the hospital at about 1:30pm. Although the employees said that they chased away the demonstrators, the agitating interns, however, alleged that some 'outsiders' chased them. They also demanded exemplary punishment to the 'outsiders' who, according to them, also vandalised the hospital director's office. They also demanded removal of Director Dr Fazlul Haq for failure to solve their problems. They alleged that the hospital authorities cancelled allotments of female students at four rooms in their dormitory and asked them to move to the male interns' hostel on the fifth floor. Since outsiders and those who completed their internship four to five years ago occupy most of the rooms of that floor, female interns told The Daily Star that they do not feel safe to stay there. Asked about a solution, the deputy director told The Daily Star, "In fact, I have nothing to do in this regard, it's the matter of the college principal and hospital director."
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