A day after the protesting junior doctors refused to meet West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee with their demands, they have written to President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, and Union Health Minister JP Nadda, seeking their intervention.
The junior doctors of state-run medical colleges and hospitals in West Bengal have been on strike since August 9 when a 31-year-old trainee doctor was found raped and murdered at Kolkata’s R G Kar hospital.
The Supreme Court, which is seized of the rape-murder case, on Monday appealed to the doctors to resume duty by Tuesday 5 pm. Despite the Supreme Court’s appeal, the junior doctors, under the banner of West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front, didn’t join the duty and rejected multiple invites from the state government for the talks.
In a four-page letter sent to the President, PM and others, the junior doctors’ front stressed the need for “swift justice” for their murdered colleague and expressed fear in carrying out their duties under the “current circumstances.”
Seeking the safety and security of healthcare personnel at the hospital, the forum wrote: “It is not solely the nature of the crime but also the place of occurrence that disturbs every postgraduate trainee… The crime perpetrated against a colleague in a hospital while she was on her duty, that would typically have extended to an unbroken stretch of 36 hours, has sparked the same fear and apprehension for personal safety as it would have, had it occurred at her own home.”
Referring to a 2019 incident at Kolkata’s NRS Medical College in which two doctors were assaulted allegedly by a 200-strong mob following the death of a patient, the forum wrote that promises made by the West Bengal government then to ensure adequate security measures in all medical institutions remain unfulfilled.
“While the same government continues to hold office, the promises have been left unattended… In this turbid atmosphere of fear, distrust and hopelessness, the junior doctors in West Bengal have been forced to avoid working within the hospital premises… We humbly place the aforementioned issues… so that our unfortunate colleague who has been the victim of the most despicable crime shall receive justice, and so that we, the healthcare professionals under the West Bengal Health Department, may be able to discharge our duties to the public without fear or apprehension. Your intervention in these trying times will act as a beacon of light to us all, showing us the way ahead out of the darkness that surrounds us,” the letter read.
The forum also said that most hospitals and medical colleges in West Bengal lack adequate infrastructure and facilities to ensure the safety of healthcare workers and listed a few of them — a) lack of adequate number of police personnel for regular patrolling of the hospital premises; b) lack of institutional safety norms and protocols; c) inadequate lighting at relevant areas; d) inadequate or malfunctioning locks and seals; e) inadequate CCTV coverage, e) lack of effective alarm system among others. It is to be noted that three weeks after the rape-murder of the RG Kar junior doctor, President Murmu in an article titled “Women’s Safety: Enough is Enough” said that she was “dismayed and horrified” over the incident and asked the country to wake up to the “perversion” of crimes against women. The President added that no civilised society can allow daughters and sisters to be subjected to such atrocities. “The nation is bound to be outraged, and so am I,” she wrote.
A day ago, a 30-member delegation of the protesting junior doctors reached Nabanna, the West Bengal state Secretariat, but refused to join talks insisting on their demand for live-streaming of proceedings, even as the chief minister said that she waited inside for “over two hours.”
In more than a month-long protest, the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front has been demanding punishment to individuals “responsible for the rape and murder, alleged tampering of evidence”; implementation of strict disciplinary action against former R G Kar principal Sandip Kumar Ghosh; resignation of Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal; stepping up of security measures for healthcare workers; elimination of “threat culture prevalent in hospitals and medical colleges across West Bengal.”
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