Protesting resident doctors in West Bengal refused to budge despite an appeal by the Supreme Court to resume work by 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
The resident junior doctors from multiple government medical colleges took out a procession to Swasthya Bhawan and held protests after they were not allowed to enter the Health Department headquarters. While they continued their protests, officials from Nabanna (State Secretariat) appealed to them to hold talks and negotiate to end the month-long logjam.
Kolkata doctor rape and murder case: Follow highlights on September 10, 2024
Trinamool MLA Chandrima Bhattacharya said, “The Principal Health Secretary sent an email from Nabanna to the protesting junior doctors at 6.10 p.m. We were ready to allow 10 or more of them to hold talks with us. However, we did not receive any response from them. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was waiting at Nabanna till 7.30 p.m. to hold talks with the doctors, but the doctors did not come.”
Responding to the claims by government officials, the protesting doctors said, “We want to keep all channels for negotiations and talks open. But the way they wrote the email and the language they used was an insult to us. The way the email came to us, it was not an official email; it was a mail from the Health Secretary, we are not in any position to officially respond to it. If there is any positive response from the government to our five demands, we are ready to consider their appeal to hold talks.”
They added that they will continue with their peaceful sit-in protests in front of the Health Department headquarters.
The five-point demands of the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front (WBJDF) include finding and punishing all possible culprits involved in the rape and murder as well as alleged tampering of evidence; disciplinary action against former R.G. Kar principal Sandip Kumar Ghosh; resignation of Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal; increased security for healthcare workers; and an end to the alleged ‘threat culture’ in hospitals and medical colleges across West Bengal.
‘Rot in the system’
The doctors marched with dummy brains, eyes, and brooms to gift to the Health Department officials. A protesting doctor at the march said, “We hope they put their brains to use. And we hope they use it to serve us justice and not use it to harass us more.”
With brooms in their hands, the doctors screamed that they were on a “Swastha Bhawan Safai Abhijan” (Health Department Cleaning Drive). They said they believe that there is a huge rot in the system which goes up to the highest officials and are hence demanding the resignation of the Health Secretary, Director of Health Services, and Director of Medical Education.
The resident doctors’ official statement on September 9 said, “We demand the removal of the Health Secretary, DME, and DHS, and that they also be brought under the CBI investigation. We also want to know the Health Minister’s stance on this massive corruption in the Health Department; we have yet to hear any statement from them.”
On Monday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee reiterated that so far, 23 people have died due to lack of treatment in government hospitals during the protests. “They had come to the hospitals, but they were sent back, and they died at home,” she said.
“Seven lakh patients did not receive services in hospital OPDs during this time and nearly 70,000 people could not be admitted indoors,” West Bengal Health Secretary Narayan Swaroop Nigam said on Monday. They added that there are 245 government hospitals in the State, of which only 26 are medical colleges.
A protesting doctor near Swastha Bhawan said, “There are 93,000 registered doctors in West Bengal, among them only 7,200 are junior doctors. If the government says the health system is falling apart because only a few of us are not working, then they should introspect about their own system.”
IMA extends support
Senior doctors from the Indian Medical Association (IMA), West Bengal unit showed support to their junior counterparts in an official statement on September 9. They said, “It was also very shocking to note the way junior doctors were portrayed as responsible for few deaths in hospitals [which] is completely false, and in no hospital, services are completely hampered due to the movement of the junior doctors,”
The organisation also said they would stand by the protesting doctors “unconditionally in all their future movements”.
The junior doctors also raised concerns over an accusatory social media post by Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee, questioning why a seriously injured young man had to travel 30 km from Konnagar to Kolkata for a CT scan.
“Why there is no minimum CT scan facility in the nearby super-speciality hospital? If the government genuinely cares about providing medical services to poor people in districts, why are district hospitals and primary health centres not being revamped?” the resident doctors asked.
In his post on X, Mr. Banerjee wrote that a young boy from Konnagar lost his life due to prolonged bleeding after an accident, which he touted as a “consequence of the ongoing protest by doctors in response to the R.G. Kar incident”.
Protesting doctors also condemned West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s call for people to return to Durga Puja festivities in her press conference on Monday. “Calling for celebrations over Abhaya’s corpse, which has not been given justice, is a blatant disgrace,” they said.
Officials react
On Monday, the administration of R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital (RGKMCH) issued a memo summoning a total of 51 junior doctors, interns and professors to an enquiry committee on September 11, based on allegations by resident doctors against these people of promoting a culture of intimidation in the institution.
Published - September 10, 2024 09:23 pm IST
