Mokokchung IMDH: Ao Senden keeps up stir despite radiologist posting

The Ao Senden, the apex body of the Ao Naga tribe, says it will not call off its agitation over staffing at Dr Imkongliba Memorial District Hospital (IMDH) in Mokokchung, even though the Nagaland government has now posted a radiologist to the hospital.

In a letter to the Commissioner and Secretary of the Health and Family Welfare Department, the organisation thanked the department for the radiologist's posting, which had been its main demand. But it said the protest would continue until its remaining demands were met, pointing to what it called "insincere actions" by the department in the recent past, MokokchungTimes reported.

What Ao Senden still wants

The organisation listed two conditions for ending the agitation:

• all doctors and nurses from IMDH who are attached to other offices or hospitals must be sent back to IMDH; and
• all doctors and nurses who have been transferred and posted to IMDH must submit their joining reports to the hospital at the earliest.

Only after both are done will it consider calling off the stir, according to the letter, which was signed by vice president Aowati and general secretary Imtipokyim and copied to Mokokchung's legislators, the deputy commissioner, the senior superintendent of police, the chief medical officer and the hospital's medical superintendent, Eastern Mirror and MokokchungTimes reported.

How the dispute grew

The row began in September, when Ao Senden gave the state government 30 days to act on three IMDH demands. It rejected the department's reply in October, and from 21 October members of Ao Senden, the Ao Kaketshir Mungdang and Ao Lanur Telongjem shut the chief medical officer's office in Mokokchung indefinitely. The group then set 31 October as a fresh deadline.

A key complaint was the transfer of a senior radiologist from IMDH to the Naga Hospital Authority in Kohima. The department had said it would station a trained sonologist at IMDH, but Ao Senden insisted that only a specialist in radiodiagnosis would do.

The department had earlier said that a psychiatrist attached to Dimapur District Hospital would return to IMDH from 1 November, and that two staff nurses attached elsewhere had been told to go back to their original postings. The organisation had also sought the shifting of hospital services into the newly built Block A, which the hospital's medical superintendent had tentatively targeted for 15 November, Eastern Mirror reported earlier.

Why it matters

IMDH is being expanded from 150 to 250 beds and is running on about 100 beds during construction. It sees up to 300 outpatients a day, nearly half of them from neighbouring districts, according to the hospital. The health department has not yet responded publicly to Ao Senden's latest letter.