Doctors' strike: Over 200 senior doctors in Bengal resign in show of solidarity; health services disrupted throughout country

Image Source : PTI
Members of Resident Doctors Association express their solidarity in protest against an attack on an interim doctor, at All India Institute of Medical Sciences

Healthcare services at private and government hospitals in the national capital and many other parts of the country were affected on Friday with scores of doctors deciding to boycott work for a day to express solidarity with their protesting colleagues in Kolkata.There was a complete shutdown of all out patient departments (OPDs), routine operation theatre services and ward visits, except emergency services in the hospitals.

Agitating junior doctors in West Bengal demanded Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's unconditional apology and set six conditions to the adminstration for withdrawal of their stir, which has disrupted healthcare services in the state and spiralled to other parts of the country. Over 200 senior doctors of various state-run hospitals across the state tendering resigned from their services to show solidarity with the agitators. Late in the evening, Banerjee met the senior doctors and later invited the agitators for talks on Saturday but they declined the offer.

Here is what happened after the incident:

The joint forum of junior doctors demanded unconditional apology of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for the manner in which she had addressed them at the SSKM Hospital yesterday.
As the medical fraternity from across the country began to rally behind their Bengal colleagues, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan urged Banerjee not to make this sensitive matter a "prestige issue" but ensure an "amicable end" to the stir, which entered the fourth day on Friday.
Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi said he called up Banerjee to discuss the issue but got no response from her.
Listing the six conditions, the agitators said Banerjee will have to visit the injured doctors at the hospital and her office should release a statement condemning the attack on them.
Doctors also demanded immediate intervention of the chief minister and documentary evidence of judicial inquiry against the inactivity of the police to provide protection to the doctors at the Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital.
The agitators also demanded unconditional withdrawal of all "false cases and charges" which were imposed on junior doctors and medical students across West Bengal in the wake of strike and also stressed on their demand for improvement of infrastructure in all health facilities as well as posting of armed police personnel there.
A senior state health department official said over 200 doctors, including heads of departments of medical colleges and hospitals in Kolkata, Burdwan, Darjeeling and North 24 Parganas districts, sent their resignation letters to the state director of medical education. "We express fullest solidarity to the current movement of NRS Medical College and Hospital and other government hospitals agitating to protest the brutal attack on them while on duty," Dr P Kundu, director of the Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine, said in the resignation letter. "We strongly stand by the demands of security and protection for all healthcare personnel and we have tried our best to continue life saving services in the interest of our patients till now," Prof (Dr) Dipanjan Bandyopadhyay, Head of Medicine department at North Bengal Medical College and Hospital, wrote in the resignation letter which contained the signature of 34 other senior doctors.
Earlier in the day, several prominent personalities like filmmaker Aparna Sen, rights activist Binayak Sen, actor and theatre personality Kaushik Sen, film director Kamaleshwar Mukherjee and musician Debojyoti Mishra along with senior doctors, visited the agitators at NRS Medical College and Hospital showing solidarity towards the junior doctors. They also participated in a rally holding placards with a message "No more violence, enough is enough". Many kin of TMC leaders also backed the doctors stir. Among them were Banerjee's nephew Abesh Banerjee, state Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim's daughter Shabba and son of TMC MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar.
The Calcutta High Court refused to pass any interim order on the strike.
In Delhi, scores of doctors at some government and private hospitals held demonstrations by marching and raising slogans to express solidarity with their Kolkata colleagues. Junior doctors in Odisha staged dharna with bandages on their foreheads, besides staying away from duty. Around 4,500 resident doctors in Maharashtra, including some 2,800 in Mumbai, went on a one-day strike.

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