The protesting West Bengal junior doctors have announced to resume duties from Saturday, ending their over 40-day long ceasework, which was called demanding justice for a 31-year-old trainee doctor’s gruesome rape and murdere at Kolkata’s state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital last month.
The incident which sent shock waves across the country led to a spiralling people’s movement in West Bengal demanding justice amid an alleged cover-up attempt.
The cease-work has been called off after the state government agreed on some of the demands of the doctors and intended to fulfill the rest following a marathon meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her senior administrative officials after several botched attempts.
The junior doctors, who are camped outside state health office Swasthya Bhavan for 11 days and on ceasework since August 9, called off the strike partially on Thursday after state chief secretary Manoj Pant promised the implementation of safety measures and efforts to dispel the threat culture.
The junior doctors will end their ceasework with a march from Swasthya Bhavan to the office of CGO Complex, the office of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is currently probing into the crime.
The doctors, however, cleared they will only rejoin work for emergency services at their respective hospital but not OPD.
“We are ending our dharna here in front of the Swasthya Bhawan and will return to work at our respective colleges from Saturday. However, we will partially join work given the flood situation in Bengal.
“We will make SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures)
and return to essential services and departments where our services are required,” Dr. Aniket Mahato, one of the leading faces of the protesting doctors, announced.
“We will still not join the OPD (Outpatient Department) and OT (Operation Theatre) services as we still don’t feel safe. The Chief Secretary has accepted many of our suggestions regarding safety issues and crackdown of the threat culture but unless implemented, we won’t join work fully,” Dr. Debashis Halder, another junior doctor, announced.
The doctors vowed to continue their protests and warned that if the threat culture continues, they would return to cease-work. “We consider this a partial victory of our protest,” the doctors said.
“The government should not take our decision lightly as we will continue protests on the streets, outside the CGO Complex, or at the Supreme Court. We want speedy justice for Abhaya [as the victim is being referred to] and we want to clearly state that if our safety demands are not met, we will return to cease-work,” Dr. Halder said.
The decision to end the cease-work partially was taken at their general body meeting a day after a second round of talks was held between the junior doctors and Chief Secretary Manoj Pant at state secretariat Nabanna on Wednesday following the one with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Although there was discord regarding the minutes of the meeting on Wednesday as the junior doctors were miffed with Pant for not signing any official document, they said that an email sent from the Chief Secretary Thursday promised that directives regarding safety will be implemented soon.
“We still want Principal Health Secretary Narayan Nigam to be removed from his position and will continue our legal battles in the Supreme Court,” the doctors said Thursday.
The last meeting between protesting junior doctors and Mamata Banerjee at the latter’s Kalighat residence on Monday saw the removal of Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DC) North Abhishek Gupta and two other health officials.
The next hearing of the RG Kar case in the Supreme Court will be held on September 27.
‘CBI not sleeping over the probe’
In its third hearing, the Supreme Court earlier this week said the status report of the RG Kar rape-murder case provided by the CBI is “worse” and “really disturbing” stating the probe agency will be given time “to unearth the truth”.
“What the CBI has revealed in the report is worse, really disturbing..What you are flagging is of utmost concern, we ourselves are concerned, CBI has flagged it for us..we are ourselves disturbed by what we have read,” Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said.
A three-judge bench led by the CJI said the CBI is not “sleeping over” the probe and the investigating agency has responded to the issues that the court has flagged.
