Taking stock of doctors’ stir in West Bengal, the Centre on Saturday issued an advisory to the Mamata Banerjee government and sought a report on the ongoing strike.
BJP MP from Asansol Babul Supriyo took to twitter to inform about the advisory. “Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issued another advisory to West Bengal state government on the ongoing strike by doctors and sought a report on the matter urgently,” he tweeted.
Several junior doctors in West Bengal had been agitating for the past few days in June 2019 to protest against the alleged attack on two of their colleagues by the relatives of a patient who died at NRS Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata on Monday night.
Around 119 doctors of North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Darjeeling resigned over alleged violence against them in the state.
The strike had brought the medical services in the state to a standstill.
The protesting doctors had set six conditions for the Bengal government to meet to call off the strike. They have also sought an unconditional apology from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her statement that “outsiders” created ruckus at the behest of BJP and CPI(M).
Banerjee, who visited the SSKM Hospital, warned the protesting doctors to call off their strike.
Next heard, Banerjee asked the agitating doctors to meet her at the Secretariat to resolve the issue, however, they turned down her invitation and asked her to come to the Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital for the meeting.
“We are not going to the secretariat upon the invitation of the Chief Minister for the meeting. She will have to come to the Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital and deliver an unconditional apology for her comments made during her visit to the SSKM Hospital on Thursday,” Arindam Dutta, spokesperson of the joint forum of junior doctors, told a news agency.
“If she can go to the SSKM she can also come to the NRS… or else this agitation will go on,” Dutta had added.
THE BIG BATTLE OF EGO
Instead of taking action against the attackers, Mamata Banerjee gave the doctors an ultimatum, warned and threatened them because of which doctors of West Bengal and across the country became edgy and angry, Minister Harsh Vardhan pointed out. “If one chief minister shows sensitivity and changes her
The outpatient department and diagnostic services largely remain suspended. Around 4,500 doctors in Maharashtra stopped attending to patients in all the 26 government hospitals in the state. “We are shutting down our outpatient departments, ward and academic services from 8 am to 5 pm today. Emergency services will not be hampered,” the state doctors’ body said in a statement. In Hyderabad, doctors staged a protest at the Nizam’s Institute Of Medical Sciences. The junior doctors’ strike in West Bengal had hit services in the state’s government-run hospitals. Over the last four days, services have been affected in emergency wards, outdoor facilities, and pathological units of many state-run hospitals. Dozens of doctors in Kolkata and Darjeeling have resigned today to protest violence against doctors in the state. During a visit to a state-run hospital in Kolkata, Ms. Banerjee warned doctors who won’t return to work. Doctors who don’t return to work must leave the hostel, she had warned. “They are outsiders.
The government will not support them in any way,” she said. “I condemn doctors who have gone on strike. Policemen die in the line of duty but the police don’t go on a strike,” she added. She has accused the BJP and the CPM of engineering the strike and playing “Hindu-Muslim politics”. Stay here to know how good senses prevailed in the otherwise mayhem state of Bengal and it’s Chief Minister’s arrogant brain, I will be back.
