Doctors at Mumbai’s JJ Hospital protest after suspending regular OPD services on Wednesday. (Express photo by Akash Patil)Patients waited for hours in overcrowded OPDs, several elective surgeries were postponed and teaching came to a standstill in government and civic-run medical colleges and hospitals across Maharashtra on Wednesday as resident doctors launched an indefinite strike against the Maharashtra Medical Council’s (MMC) decision to grant conditional registration to BHMS graduates who have completed the Certificate Course in Modern Pharmacology (CCMP).The agitation is set to intensify on Thursday, with doctors threatening to suspend even emergency services if the impasse continues, even as Medical Education Minister Hasan Mushrif said the government had halted the registration process after granting only one conditional registration on Tuesday night to defuse the situation and would not proceed with further registrations until there was clarity from the Bombay High Court.According to Central MARD, around 40,000 resident doctors and interns across Maharashtra, including 4,500 in Mumbai, participated in the first day of the strike. The association claimed the protest affected nearly 57,400 OPD consultations across the state, including around 10,000 in Mumbai’s government and civic hospitals.The strike affected 35 government and five municipal medical colleges, with resident doctors boycotting OPDs, elective surgeries and academic activities. As a result, no teaching sessions were held in medical colleges on Wednesday.The impact was most visible in medicine and surgery departments, where hospitals struggled to manage patient loads with reduced manpower. Professors, associate professors, assistant professors, bonded assistant professors, senior residents and, in some hospitals, interns were deployed to keep essential services running.At Nair Hospital, the waiting list of patients at the OPD crossed 140 patients by noon.Sunil Haryana, a Nerul resident who has been visiting the rheumatology OPD for treatment over the past three years, reached the hospital around 7.30 am but was still waiting to be examined after noon. “Usually the wait is not this long. Our regular doctors were not there today. Had I known about the strike, I would not have come,” he said.Story continues below this adNandini Pal, who has been bringing her mother for arthritis treatment at Nair Hospital for the past seven years, said they reached the hospital at 8 am but were still waiting at noon. “Normally there are five or six doctors in the OPD, but today there were only two. We left home at 7 am and have not even had lunch yet,” she said. Her mother suffers from severe joint pain and stiffness due to arthritis.Patients from Mumbai, Vasai-Virar and neighbouring areas crowded hospital OPDs through the day.Similar scenes were reported at KEM, Sion, Cooper and JJ hospitals, where OPDs functioned with skeletal staff and several elective surgeries were postponed. JJ Hospital Dean Dr Ajay Bhandarwar said the hospital had managed to keep critical services operational despite the strike. “The main operation theatre, gastrointestinal endoscopy services and the 24-hour emergency operation theatre remained functional despite the strike.”The agitation follows the MMC’s decision to begin granting conditional registrations to BHMS practitioners who have completed the CCMP course, allowing them to practise modern scientific medicine within limits prescribed by government notifications and subject to the outcome of pending litigation before the Bombay High Court.