Kolkata: The alleged rape and murder of a 32-year-old doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital has led to widespread protests and strikes across the country with doctors refusing to return to work. Due to the large-scale protests, the OPD services have been affected in several hospitals, causing hardships to the patients.
The postgraduate trainee doctor was raped and murdered at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata while on duty. The semi-naked body of the doctor was found in the seminar hall of the government-run hospital in the West Bengal capital on Thursday night.
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- Doctors across the country continued their strike on Tuesday protesting the rape and murder of the woman doctor and demanding justice for her. The protests hit the out-patient department (OPD) services and non-emergency surgeries.
- The resident doctors of several states have gone on strike a days after the Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association (FORDA) announced a nationwide pause in elective services in hospitals and said the “strike won’t stop unless justice is served and our demands are met”. According to the FORDA, during the indefinite strike,, operation theatres, and ward duties will be shut, but emergency services will continue to operate as usual.
- The stir affected healthcare services as long queues of patients were seen at OPDs of several hospitals across the country since early Tuesday morning. Patients coming to visit doctors at the OPD at different hospitals or getting admitted for scheduled surgeries and other medical services, had to return home after they were given an alternate date.
- AIIMS Delhi has issued a circular, asking the doctors to join work and citing a High Court order that doctors cannot be part of protests on the premises. According to PTI, the number of daily surgeries at AIIMS Delhi has come down by 80 per cent and admissions by 35 per cent after doctors began an indefinite strike over the Kolkata incident.
- In Delhi, resident doctors from multiple hospitals, including centrally-run facilities AIIMS, RML Hospital and Safdarjung Hospital, began strike in the morning, causing hardships to patients who visited out-patient departments of the medical facilities only to be returned without any consultation.
- OPD services at most hospitals in Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Lucknow have also been hit after doctors joined the protest demanding justice in the case. In Mumbai, doctors in several prominent hospitals, including JJ Hospital, Sion Hospital, Nair Hospital have joined the protest. In Lucknow’s King George’s Medical University protesting doctors marched to the outdoor patients’ department to stop work there. Patients and their relatives were seen banging on the OPD’s shut doors, demanding that they be treated.
- West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, after paying a visit to the parents of the deceased on Monday, gave a deadline of August 18 to Kolkata Police to solve the case, failing which she said she would hand over the matter to the CBI.
- Meanwhile, a two-member team of the National Commission for Women (NCW) visited RG Kar Medical College and Hospital this morning. They went to the seminar hall where the woman doctor was raped and murdered. The two-member team led by Delina Khongdup went to meet the investigating officers at Kolkata Police’s headquarters at Lalbazar after reaching the city, before going to the victim’s Panihati residence to meet the parents.
