Claiming that 29 people lost their lives during more than a month-long strike by protesting junior doctors in the state-run hospitals, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday announced a “token” compensation of Rs 2 lakh to the family members of each of the deceased patients.

“It is sad and unfortunate that we have lost 29 precious lives due to disruption in health services because of the long-drawn cease work by junior doctors… In order to extend a helping hand to the bereaved families, the state government announces a token financial relief of Rs 2 lakh to the family members of each deceased person,” the CM posted on her X handle.

The chief minister’s announcement comes a day after the government’s talks with the protesting junior doctors failed to take off over the issue of live-streaming the meeting.

The junior doctors have, however, dismissed the chief minister’s claim that 29 people lost lives “due to disruption in health services”, saying that senior and resident doctors have been working “round the clock in the OPDs, emergency section, and hospital wards” for the past one month.

On Monday, when the three-Judge bench of the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, was hearing the R G Kar Hospital rape-and-murder case, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, who appeared for the West Bengal government told the bench that the doctors’ protests had paralysed the state’s health sector. He said 23 patients had lost their lives so far due to the protests and several lakhs of people had been denied treatment.

After this, the CJI said: “The young doctors must now return and resume work… Protest cannot be at the cost of duty. If doctors do not resume work (by 5 pm September 10), then we cannot stop the government from taking disciplinary action. We want to ensure that doctors resume work. They are in a system to render service. We will provide facilities, but they have to reciprocate.”

Sibal assured that no punitive action, including transfers, would be ordered against the doctors who return to work. However, the junior doctors accused the TMC government and Sibal of obstructing justice and misleading people.

“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 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,” the forum added.

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