Kolkata: The junior doctors of Bengal shall resume their work duties on Saturday as they called off their protest over the rape and murder of a resident doctor in RG Kar Hospital. However, the doctors will resume OPD services or attend elected operations only when they are assured of the government’s commitment to ensure their safety.
The doctors made it clear that this partial return to work is not by any means an end to their agitation. “If needed, we will begin ceasework again,” said a representative of the junior doctors. The legal battle will also continue, as would their demand for a quick resolution of the rape-murder of a 31-year-old doctor that is at the heart of the protest.
The end of this phase of protest will be marked by a march from the protest site to the CGO Complex, where the office of the Central Bureau of Investigation is located.
The announcement from doctors came after the state had accepted most of their demands amid massive floods in South Bengal where health services have now become top priority.
The move comes following West Bengal government’s appointment of Manoj Kumar Verma as the new Kolkata Police chief, replacing Vineet Goyal, and the removal of two senior health department officials, giving in to the medics’ earlier demands.
On September 19, Verma visited RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, where a postgraduate trainee doctor was raped and murdered on August 9, sparking nationwide protests and prompting junior doctors of West Bengal to launch ‘cease work’.
Earlier on Thursday, the Chief Secretary wrote to the Principal Secretary, giving detailed instructions which included ensuring adequate availability of on-duty rooms, washrooms, CCTVs, deployment of police and security personnel which would include women, mobile police teams for surveillance at night, central helpline and panic buttons and alarms.
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