With the condition of eight junior doctors sitting on indefinite fast entering the third day on Tuesday — and no offer of talks coming from the side of the State Government — the senior doctors of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital tendered mass resignation warning they would go for bigger struggle should State not respond positively.
To make matter worse the senior doctors of the senior doctors of Calcutta Medical College too threatened to follow in the footsteps of their RGKMCH colleagues if the Government did not respond within 24 hours. Earlier in the day, 15 senior doctors also joined their junior counterparts in a symbolic hunger strike, further demonstrating the growing unrest within the hospital.
"About fifty of us senior doctors today tendered mass resignation as a mark of solidarity with our junior colleagues because they are fighting for a just cause," said a senior doctor. The doctors' resignations came on a day when junior doctors of other medical colleges observed a symbolic fast on Tuesday in support of their colleagues in Kolkata.
Eight doctors from different medical colleges of Kolkata have been on an indefinite fast in support of their ten-point demand that includes a centralised referral system, security for all the medical staff inside the hospitals, ending of the threat syndicate and related malpractices that were rampant in most of the Government medical colleges and hospitals, basic amenities like rest rooms and washrooms for doctors, installation of CCTV cameras in all the Government hospitals, real-time monitoring of bed availability, and the establishment of task forces to ensure the proper functioning of essential facilities like CCTV cameras, on-call rooms, and washrooms, etc.
The doctors have also been asking for students' body elections that had not taken for quite some time now, to be conducted in all colleges "so that students nominated by influential people from the ruling party do not get the chance to control the system and perpetrate a threat syndicate and extort lakhs of rupees from students and even subjecting them sexual exploitation," junior doctors said.
One of the resigning doctors wrote on the X "Safety in the workplace is basic. If you can't ensure that, you have no right to demand services from doctors." The doctor wrote that there was no guarantee that there won't be another RGKMCH like incident in future. "Would you want your children to work in an environment like that? Toiling away with no personal security?" one added.
Meanwhile, State Chief Secretary Manoj Pant on Tuesday called an urgent meeting with Principal Health Secretary and other senior officials to review the present situation, sources said adding the Government had taken note of the deteriorating condition of the junior doctors and could soon come out with talk offers.
