Kerala's public health system moved closer to a big crisis on Monday with Government doctors in the state’s 1,200 public hospitals and over a thousand Primary and Community Health Centres sticking to their decision to go on an indefinite strike from Thursday.

While the Government postured alternatively between wanting to try for a conciliation and acting tough, surgeries were put off in hospitals across the state and doctors confined themselves to looking after only emergency cases in several. The doctors have declared that no new patients will be admitted in the run up to their stir, and scores of patients were turned back on Monday.

In Kannur, doctors at the Government hospital discharged and sent home all 92 in patients in the wards, including some seriously ailing, leading to spontaneous local protests. The doctors, organised under the Kerala Government Medical Officers Association (KGMOA), also suspended private practice after duty hours from Monday.

The Government, meanwhile, managed to avert the Government Medical College teachers too going on strike after it froze its orders extending the tenure of a dozen senior specialist teachers, post retirement. The state medical colleges have been struggling with a crippling shortage of doctors and the Government move to retain the services of the superannuated specialist teachers were opposed by the serving teachers claiming it would block their promotion prospects. They had conducted a token one-day stir last week.

The KGMOA stir is a sequel to its two-year-old agitation for better wages, and the Government had not been overtly keen to work on the alleged anomalies in the pay fixation of state doctors. They claim the last pay reforms have in effect resulted in many doctors actually drawing a lesser pay than they did earlier, while the Government stance is that the doctors need to wait for the next pay commission proposals to review their case.

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