Doctors’ strike hit services as protests spread nationwide

Kolkata: With the junior doctors, interns and postgraduate trainees in various state-run medical colleges in Kolkata continuing their strike for the fourth consecutive day, hospital services have been partially disrupted.

To tackle the situation many senior doctors were deployed in various departments of these medical colleges.

Health secretary NS Nigam held a meeting at Swasthya Bhawan with various senior health department officials giving necessary instructions to tackle the crisis in various medical colleges.

Health officials are in talks with the protesting doctors in various hospitals.

It has been decided that a team of senior doctors would be sent to the departments where the health services would be affected.

Senior doctors have already been deployed in various medical colleges to handle the crisis that has been triggered due to the doctors’ cease work. The state government has already cancelled the leave of all senior doctors to manage the situation. At RG Kar Medical College Hospital in Calcutta, the striking doctors raised slogans: “No safety, no duty”. Protests were carried out at the Calcutta Medical College, SSKM and other medical colleges in Kolkata. The emergency wards did not properly work on Monday morning.

The protesters are not satisfied with the police probe even though the Calcutta police’s special investigation team has arrested a 35-year-old civic cop, Sanjay Roy. “We want an impartial investigation into the murder of our colleague, either by the CBI or a sitting magistrate,” said a protesting junior doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

RG Kar Medical College’s protesting doctors threatened to continue the protest until their 6-point demands are met. They demanded a judicial probe into the incident and the highest possible punishment for the accused. The agitating doctors also demanded the resignation of several officials of the hospital and they should be kept in any post in the future. They also demanded that the state government should ensure the safety of all health workers in medical colleges and 24-hours CCTV monitoring and a restroom for the on-duty doctors.

Ripples of the doctors’ protest spread from Calcutta to Delhi, Chandigarh and Uttar Pradesh on Monday. Resident doctors, be it in Calcutta or Delhi, had mainly two demands – justice and security.

In the national capital’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences, responding to a call from the Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association, medicos held a protest outside India’s most respected medical institute. Apart from AIIMS, resident doctors at the Maulana Azad Medical College, RML Hospital, Lady Hardinge Medical College, VMMC and Safdarjung Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, GTB, IHBAS, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Medical College and National Institute of TB and Respiratory Disease Hospital were on strike.