News Mania / Piyal Chatterjee / 8th October 2024
Senior physicians and hospital professors have sent a mass resignation letter to the director of medical education at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in response to ongoing demonstrations over the rape and murder of a younger physician. Six of their coworkers are embarking on an indefinite hunger strike that began on Tuesday, and they have voiced concern in their letter about their “deteriorating” health.
Doctors are worried that their colleagues’ health is “deteriorating tremendously fast” as they protest for improved work conditions in the wake of the rape and murder. The letter has received 47 signatures thus far.
“We, the undersigned doctors of R G Kar Medical College and Hospital, have been striving to provide optimal hospital services. However, the current conditions have made it increasingly challenging to deliver the quality of patient care that is essential,” the letter said.It further said: “We request the government to come into reconciliation with the protesting doctors and the ones who are sitting on indefinite hunger strike immediately. We senior doctors of R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital are giving mass resignation (sic)”.
Since a junior doctor was raped and killed on August 9, there have been continuous protests at the RG Kar Hospital. The state’s medical services have been severely impacted by doctors’ demands for improved working conditions throughout West Bengal.
The junior physicians declared on Monday that they would go on a 12-hour hunger strike, which began at 9 a.m. on Tuesday. Six protestors also declared that they would go on a “indefinite” hunger strike.Junior physicians are getting ready to stage a symbolic rally later in the evening from College Square in the heart of Kolkata to the protest location Dharmatala, even though the authorities have not yet granted them permission to do so.
Meanwhile, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is investigating the case, is set to deliver its chargesheet in the case at a special court in Sealdah this afternoon. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections 64 (rape), 66 (penalty for causing death or resulting in a prolonged vegetative condition of victim), and 101 (murder) are set to be brought against Sanjoy Roy, a civic volunteer who was arrested in August, by the agency.
