The ongoing indefinite strike by junior doctors in the Patna Medical College and Hospital has cost five patients their lives.

Sources in the PMCH said that at least five people including two children have died due to the strike by  600 post-graduate medical students, which entered the fourth day on Sunday, paralysing the emergency services of the hospital.

"Two people died on Saturday and two died on Friday," said sources.

The junior doctors went on strike on June 16 in protest against the failure of PMCH authorities to lodge a police complaint against persons involved in the attack on some of their colleagues in the hospital.

The junior doctors were demanding the immediate removal of PMCH principal M L Verma and hospital superintendent O P Chaudhary for their failure in lodging a police complaint soon after the incident. The were also demanding accommodation for all post-graduate students in the hospital campus, failing which they would stop attending duty for 12 hours everyday.

PMCH Junior Doctors' Association president Gauhar Alam said that senior doctors were not attending emergency and indoor duty.

He claimed that emergency services had been completely paralysed due to the strike of junior doctors. He also claimed that most of the emergency patients had left the hospital during the last two days.

However, PMCH officials said that senior doctors were deployed in the hospital and taking care of the emergency ward. But, most of the patients, mostly poor, complained that there was no doctor to attend them.