Mumbai: Hours after the Bombay High Court (HC) questioned the real-life consequences of doctors protesting and stopping work in Maharashtra, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) informed it that it was withdrawing the strike “forthwith”, but its grievances remain pending before it. Dr. Atharva Shinde, President of Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD)’s central unit, representing government doctors, said they were protesting but did not stop emergency services.

During the hearing in the second session, the HC warned the IMA it would be compelled to stop wages if the medical association resorts to “confrontation”. The High Court bench of Acting Chief Justice Ravindra V Ghuge and Justice Gautam A Ankhad said, “Will you strike at the cost of patients? There will be no work and no pay. Not one patient should die in municipal or government hospital. Will you start treating patients by calling off the strike? We will ask the state to go on a war footing (in the homeopaths registration matter),” the bench said.

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Senior Advocate S U Kamdar, representing IMA, enumerated a “host of reasons” behind the strike but said the issues did not justify it. On instructions from the IMA office bearers, Kamdar submitted that the strike would be withdrawn immediately.

Appreciating the association’s “maturity”, the court said they would participate in the suo motu plea on the larger issue. It also directed the State to implement, in “letter and spirit”, its Government Resolution (GR) providing a committee to frame a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) on the homeopaths registration issue.

The bench appointed Senior Advocate Vineet Naik and Advocate Amogh Singh as amici curiae (friends of the court) and posted the hearing to September 8.

‘Can doctors bring back dead people to life?’ – What Bombay HC said earlier

Raising concern over doctors threatening to suspend emergency services if the impasse continued, the High Court bench said it was “pained” by the doctors’ protest.

“We are pained by the fact that practicing doctors have resorted to a strike. We have read in the newspaper today that they have said, we will not even take care of ICU patients,” Acting CJ Ghuge said. “We have to look at what could be the ramifications. One can understand that if there is a strike in a factory for 30 days, the worst case is loss of earnings. In the case of lawyers, we do not say anything. In the case of doctors, if patients die, can they bring back the dead patients to life?” the bench said.

One of the key issues for the doctors’ protest was the Maharashtra government’s move to implement a provision that allowed certain homeopathy (BHMS) practitioners to be registered under a separate register maintained by the Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) after completing a bridge course.