Alluding to the flight of professionals to foreign countries, Khanvilkar says resident doctors are only ``students'' who are expected to work for their degrees. This, he reasons, justifies the pitiable Rs 4,000 to Rs 6,000 they receive as a stipend compared to Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 given to central government resident doctors. Prodded further, he conjurs up a strange logic, pointing out that hospitals in Maharashtra are better equipped than those in say, Bihar or Uttar Pradesh!

Hasn't the strike affected the functioning of hospitals?
No it hasn't. I was in Nagpur on Tuesday and I made a round of the hospitals there. The OPD attendance was 1,000 in one of the hospitals, 100 more than the usual. On Monday, I visited St George, Cama, GT and JJ Hospitals. Everything was normal, I can show you the photographs.

But OPD attendance has been poor in public hospitals.
Tuesday was a public holiday. I have got the reports today saying OPDs are functioning properly. Additional Municipal Commissioner G S Gill told me today that 75 per cent OPDs are functioning in municipal hospitals. Perhaps it is just that patients who come from far-off places are not coming any more, and waiting for the strike to end. One or two empty wards might be there, but after-care patients are being looked after.

But a lot of patients have been discharged/turned away.
Such instances are rare. There have been hardly any complaints in the control rooms we have set up. We have publicised the existence of the control rooms, even in the electronic media. But there have been no complaints because there are people to look after them.

Why is it that resident doctors here are paid less, even less than in poorer states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar?
What kind of hospitals do you have in UP and Bihar? There is no equipment there, here we are providing the best health care, we have the best facilities for patients.

How is that connected to the residents' salaries?
We have to spend a lot on equipment. The government is in dire financial straits, we don't have that kind of money.

But you could afford a bonus of Rs 390 crore for state government employees?
They are our permanent staff. The resident doctors are here only for two or three years, after that they will go. Though I hope they will stay on in Maharashtra, otherwise they'll go settle in the US.

But don't residents put in a lot of work?
Despite that, they are paid less, their accommodation facilities are abysmal.
They are only students, they are taught here for the future. Students will have to stay in hostels, and government hostels are in good shape. In any case, they have to work for their degrees. And we are not asking them to work free for us, we pay them a stipend.

If they are students, why do they have to work so much -- at times, 24 hours at a stretch?
We had told them that these points could be discussed in the committee we have set up. The committee will submit its report by January 31, and we shall decide on that then.

But the earlier committee's report was never implemented.
I was not there then, and I cannot comment on that. When I was the minister, I had given them a Rs 1,000 hike, and I did not increase their fees later. In 1996, they had been given another hike. Even now, we have offered interim relief of Rs 1,000, but they are not agreeing to that. Now they will have to call off the strike, only then we can talk.