Kolkata: Junior doctors protesting the rape and murder of a junior doctor at the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata have announced plans to continue their demonstration on the matter beginning Tuesday morning, unnerved by the Supreme Court’s ultimatum to report for work by 5 p.m.
On Monday, a Supreme Court bench led by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud instructed that doctors in West Bengal protesting the rape-murder at R.G. Kar must resume their duty by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, or the state government will be permitted to take disciplinary action against them.
The bench, which included Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, told the doctors that no disciplinary action would be taken if they reported for duty at or before 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
The protesting representatives of the medical fraternity have issued further demands, including suspending the Health Secretary, Director of Health Services, and Director of Medical Education.
Junior doctors will march to the Swastha Bhavan, the health department’s headquarters in Salt Lake, on Tuesday afternoon to support their demands.
Earlier, echoing the Supreme Court’s statement, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee pleaded with junior doctors to return to work.
Not Worried by the SC deadline and the Chief Minister’s appeal, the junior doctors said they would continue to oppose the situation.
The protesting doctors additionally said that they are only “trainee doctors,” and their absence from duty demonstrates how dire the situation is in the health service, where there is a shortage of adequately educated doctors and allied medical personnel.
The protesting doctors also presented some statistics in support of their requests.
According to them, of the 245 state-run hospitals in West Bengal, only 26 are medical colleges and hospitals.
While the overall number of junior physicians in West Bengal is roughly 7,500, the state has approximately 93,000 registered doctors.
In such a situation, where only junior doctors linked to the state’s medical institutions and hospitals had gone on ‘stop work’, they questioned how the entire state’s health system could collapse.
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–IANS
(Photo: IANS/Kuntal Chakrabarty)
