‘Feel hopeless about doctors’ security’

Kolkata: On the 172nd birth anniversary of Dr Radha Gobinda Kar who founded the Calcutta School of Medicine in 1886, an institution later rechristened as RG Kar

Medical College and Hospital in memory of the physician-philanthropist, his descendants felt “hopeless” at the “minimal progress achieved in state-run healthcare facilities” cradling young doctors.

Speaking to a news agency, the fourth generation of RG Kar’s descendants, who live in the same house in the Ramrajatala area of Howrah where he was born on August 23, 1852, said they felt heartbroken to know little has improved in terms of providing security and facilities to budding doctors, a goal with which Kar had set up the facility amid major adversities 138 years ago.

The family felt it would be prudent to “leave it to the conscience” of the agitating junior doctors who have struck work, albeit on “valid grounds” and crippled public healthcare in Bengal for two weeks now to decide whether or not it is time for them to return to work.

“I feel quite hopeless at the dearth of facilities our doctors continue to have at the government hospitals even after nearly eight decades of our Independence.... RG Kar wanted to produce quality doctors to take on the widespread diseases of his time. We have failed to honour his memory,” said Partha Kar, a photographer-teacher.

“I shudder to think what happened to the victim could also have happened to my daughter. Her eyes were oozing blood, not tears,” Gargi, Partha’s wife added.