‘Pressure from seniors, deteriorating health services forced to withdraw hunger strike’
Kolkata: Prolonged pressure from the senior doctors and relentless appeals from various quarters, including the principals of city’s various medical colleges and deteriorating health services in government hospitals, forced the junior doctors to end the weeks-long hunger strike on Monday.
Senior doctors for the past few days tried to convince the agitating junior doctors to withdraw from the hunger strike. The senior doctors told the juniors that under no circumstances should the health services in government hospitals be affected.
Incidentally, the health services in almost all the medical colleges in the state were majorly hit ever since the junior doctors started crease work following the RG Kar incident. Sources said that the principals of various medical colleges in Kolkata also played a crucial role in dissuading junior doctors from continuing the indefinite hunger strike.
Several meetings between the junior doctors and the seniors in government medical colleges were held to end the impasse. The support base the agitating junior doctors got from the districts initially in their movement was gradually eroding. Several WhatsApp groups were formed overnight in various districts after the RG Kar incident. These group members were organising rallies in the districts, coordinating between the members as to how to hold meetings and human chains locally. As the movement seemed to lose momentum, members of these groups began to leave.
After Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held the meeting with the junior doctors on Monday and the latter announced the withdrawal of the indefinite hunger strike, these WhatsApp groups from the districts started dissolving.
It was learnt that many members left the groups, leading to questions about whether there was any purpose in continuing them. It was also learnt that as many as 30 members left a WhatsApp group formed near the house of the RG Kar victim doctor between Monday night and Tuesday morning.
The agitating doctors under the fold of the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front, however, after the meeting with the Chief Minister on Monday evening said that they were withdrawing the hunger strike following the request from the parents of the RG Kar victim doctor. Meanwhile, the junior doctors handed over documents consisting of 137 pages to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee regarding RG Kar’s financial irregularities.
It was alleged that all the irregularities occurred in RG Kar during the tenure of Sandip Ghosh as the principal. State Health department will, however, carry out a probe into the procurements of various equipment during the period.
