Similar hunger strikes have also begun at Jamnagar and Surat medical colleges and the hospitals attached to them from Wednesday, a JDA spokesman said. With this, the stalemate between the Junior Doctors' Association and the government continues at the cost of the patients, even as the doctors reiterated their determination to fight till the end.

Members said a large number of representatives of the Junior Doctors' Associations of the Surat, Jamnagar and Vadodara government hospitals had called on Health Minister Ashok Bhatt in Gandhinagar on Tuesday to press for their demand, but had to return disappointed. They said Bhatt had reiterated that he would call them for talks only after 24 hours of the withdrawal of strike.

The doctors, meanwhile, staged a demonstration in front of hospital superintendent and urged him to apprise the minister of the deteriorating medical facilities at the hospital.

Later in the evening, doctors told Express Newsline that from Thursday at least six junior doctors from different faculties would join the parallel OPDs and services would also be improved. They said they had called a meeting of medical representatives and were working on setting up a `medicine bank' through which poor patients would be given medicines also.

Meanwhile, the stir is taking its toll on the hospital as services continue to be paralysed and attendance going down further. A number of planned operations and surgeries and non-emergency cases were either being officially suspended or not admitted. According to information, only about 100 senior doctors and teachers were running the hospital as of today.

It may be recalled that all 350-odd junior doctors in Vadodara and almost as many in the two other cities are on strike since September 6, demanding a hike in their stipend, which they claimed was grossly inadequate as compared to that given in other states.