LAUSR

Health services across north New Delhi, the capital city of India, have come to a standstill over the last week, with doctors from Hindu Rao Hospital going on an indefinite hunger strike since 23 October 2020 amid a global health crisis due to COVID-191 in response to unpaid wages. Similar non-payment of salary for the last 16 months led Karnataka doctors to strike in July 2020. Strikes by medical doctors in India are not unknown but these seem to have become a moral and national problem. Increasing reports of violence against doctors, fear of being sued and inadequate security provided to doctors in hospitals have traditionally been the causes of regional or national strikes.2–4 COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated violence against doctors and healthcare workers.5 Apart from violence against the doctors, increasing reservation in the jobs based on caste or social status, dispute in monetary allowances, administrative problems, lack of infrastructure and stringent medical regulations have become fundamental causes of strikes in the recent past in government-run hospitals and institutions of India. Recently, unavailability, including defective personal protective equipment and N95 masks, has led many doctors to go on strike in despair against the unsafe working conditions …