Kolkata rape-murder case: Nearly 50 faculty members, senior doctors resign from R G Kar en masse

Kolkata Even as seven junior doctors continued with the fast-unto-death stir, nearly 50 senior doctors of the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata resigned en masse on Tuesday expressing solidarity with the agitation that swept West Bengal after the August 9 rape and murder of a young medic.

The senior doctors of other government hospitals and medical colleges across West Bengal also threatened to resign en masse if the state government did not accept the demands of the junior medics, who suspended the second round of their cease-work stir last Friday but launched a fast-unto-death agitation on Saturday.

As nearly 50 senior doctors resigned en masse and walked out of the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital on Tuesday, the junior doctors greeted them with applause.

Six junior doctors from different medical colleges went on fasting on Saturday while another from the RGKMCH joined them on Sunday.

While the seven are continuing fasting in Esplanade at the heart of Kolkata, the other junior and senior doctors are also going on relay hunger strikes for six, eight, 10, or 12 hours at different hospitals and medical colleges across the state.

Some of the senior doctors, who resigned at the RGKMCH, went to the makeshift podium at Esplanade to express solidarity with the seven fasting junior doctors.

The senior doctors of the Kolkata National Medical College, and the Institute of Post-Graduate Medical Education and Research and Seth Sukhlal Karnani Memorial Hospital also gave an ultimatum of 24 hours to the state government to accept the demands of the protesting junior doctors. The Association of Health Services Doctors, an organisation of medics in public sector healthcare institutions, threatened to issue a state-wide call for mass resignation if the demands of the doctors are not fulfilled.

Apart from justice for the 31-year-old young medic, who was raped and murdered at the RGKMCH, the demands of the junior doctors include the removal of the state health secretary, appointment of male and female police personnel in medical college campuses instead of civic volunteers (contractual support staff of police), filling up of vacancies for doctors, nurses and healthcare workers, holding student elections and recognition of Resident Doctors Associations, inquiries into alleged irregularities of the state medical council and setting up of college-level inquiry committees to punish those responsible for the culture of intimidation in the healthcare institutions of the state.

The state government reiterated its appeal to the protesting doctors to end the agitation, with Chief Secretary Manoj Pant promising that it would complete 90% of the works for enhancing safety and security measures in the hospitals by October 10, including installation of closed circuit cameras and alarm buttons.