At a meeting to discuss measures to counter the strike by the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) about 2,000 of the 5,000 resident doctors are posted in Mumbai Health Minister Digvijay Khanvilkar said today said dentists and the teaching faculty in medical colleges will not participate in the agitation. About 250 doctors from primary health centres across the state have also been summoned to man the government and civic hospitals in the state from Wednesday. The agitation has been launched to demand a hike in pay scales, among other things.

The government has alsoset up two control rooms at Mantralaya and at the Directorate of Health Services, St George's Hospital, for the benefit of the public. Information can be sourced on Tel: 202 8615 and 261 1101.

According to a spokesperson of St George's Hospital, the Out-Patients Department will remain closed and all patients will be treated in the Casualty Department irrespective of the nature of complaints.

On the eve of the strike, patients began lining up outside civic hospitals in Mumbai but were turned away. ``If we admit them now, there will be nobody to take care of them,'' said a wardboy at KEM Hospital. Only emergency cases are being attended to.

Meanwhile, 49-year-old Chandu Babulal Hajman sleeps in an Ambassador car parked outside the same hospital. He arrived from Indore on Saturday for an urgent brain tumour operation with the reference of his local doctor.

``However, they checked me up a few times and then asked me to leave since there was a strike,'' he says. This vegetable vendor arrived from Indoreaccompanied by five relatives in a car loaned by the local MLA after the pain in his skull started spreading. ``We begged the doctors to consider his case since he required urgent medical attention, but they said they were going on strike,'' says his son Ramesh. He recalls seeing at least four other patients being similarly turned away.

MARD's organising secretary and spokesperson, Dr Rajas Deshpande, states: ``At KEM and other hospitals several patients have been turned away because the senior teachers cannot handle the load once we go on strike. In fact, there have been less than 10 per cent admissions in the last day because of this.'' He said only the casualty, and emergency departments will remain open while routine surgeries and OPDs will completely stop.

With the final breakdown in negotiations between the state government and resident doctors on Saturday, the indefinite strike became a certainty. Briefing newspersons on Saturday, Khanvilkar had said that there was a marathon round of talks betweenthe two sides and the government offered the resident doctors interim relief amounting to Rs 1,000. However, the resident doctors are asking for about three times that amount. They also want the authorities to specify the pay scales that would come into effect, he said.There are about 5,000 doctors and 1,000 interns affiliated to MARD in the state.