After the Supreme Court on Monday asked the protesting junior doctors to resume work by Tuesday evening, they said they would continue with their cease work if the West Bengal government failed to meet their demands by 5 pm Tuesday.
“We want to clearly tell the state government that if it addresses our demands by 5 pm tomorrow (Tuesday), only then we can consider its request regarding the strike,” Dr Debdut Bhadra, a member of the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front, said at a press conference Monday night after the protesting junior doctors went into a huddle over the Supreme Court’s order.
The junior doctors have been on strike since August 9 when a 31 year-old trainee doctor was raped and killed at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.
During the hearing in the Supreme Court, Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud said “protest cannot be at the cost of duty” and directed the young doctors to resume work. “You have to now return to work, and if you do not come to work, do not hold anyone responsible for disciplinary action against you. You cannot say that seniors are working so we will not,” the CJI said.
“In order to create a sense of confidence”, if the doctors return to work by 5 pm, Tuesday, no adverse action should be taken against them, the Bench added.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also urged doctors to resume duty and offered to hear their demands. However, the junior doctors accused the TMC government in the state and its legal representatives of obstructing justice and misleading people. They announced to march to Swasthya Bhavan, the headquarters of the state health Department, on Tuesday.
“We are deeply disheartened and aggrieved… We saw the state government and its lawyer, Kapil Sibal, playing a disgraceful role in trying to stop and malign our movement by any means. They claim that due to the junior doctors’ strike, people are dying and patient services are being disrupted. We want to remind everyone that patient services are operational in every medical college in the state with senior doctors tirelessly providing care. We also want to remind the public that there are 245 government hospitals in the state, of which only 26 are medical colleges. The number of junior doctors is less than 7,500. West Bengal has nearly 93,000 registered doctors. Given that only a few medical colleges have junior doctors on strike. How can the entire healthcare system be said to be collapsing?” the doctors’ forum said.
“We believe this is a nefarious government effort to tarnish our movement and mislead the massive public support for it. We condemn Kapil Sibal and the health department, including the health minister, for this vile attempt to mislead the Supreme Court,” the forum said.
“We want to remind both the government and the Supreme Court that junior doctors are not the main pillar of the healthcare system; they are merely trainees,” it added.
The doctors emphasised that despite the ongoing probe by the CBI, justice for the victim remained elusive.
The doctors demanded immediate action from the government on their key demands, including the suspension of officials involved in the case and the implementation of safety measures for doctors. They highlighted the ongoing corruption within the health system and the lack of proper infrastructure and staff appointments in government hospitals.
“We had hoped to bring about a fundamental change in the health system, making it truly people-centric through our movement. However, now Kapil Sibal and the government are attempting to label the movement as anti-people in the Supreme Court,” the forum said.
“Our movement is a comprehensive one, a movement of the people. The government or the Supreme Court should not forget this. We view the attacks on the general public as an attack on us as well, and we demand immediate punishment for all involved in these incidents,” the association of doctors said.
Earlier in the day, the protesting junior doctors went into a huddle after the Supreme Court asked them to resume work by Tuesday evening. At RG Kar Medical College and Hospital — the ground zero of the protests since August 9 when a 31-year-old trainee doctor was raped and murdered — only a handful of junior doctors were seen at the protest site.
“It is very disappointing. We waited for long and was expecting some clarity on the investigation part, but the whole issue of the rape and murder case was diverted to protest by the doctors,” Dr Soumyadip Roy, a junior doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, told The Indian Express.
“This is something we were not expecting. Many are calling it our moral defeat, but we don’t think we will ever stop demanding justice. We will see to its end. There are different ways to protest. A final decision will only be taken after discussing with all the representatives of all the hospitals in our meeting today,” said another protesting doctor.
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