At Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, junior and intern doctors as well as post-graduate students went on strike for a fourth day in protest against the rape and murder of a female trainee doctor, whose body was found inside the facility.
New Delhi, 12 August 2024
Junior doctors, interns, and postgraduate trainees at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College went on strike for a fourth day on Monday, calling for a magistrate’s investigation into the rape and killing of a 31-year-old woman trainee doctor. The principal of the college resigned.
Sandeep Ghosh’s resignation had been demanded by physicians and medical students. Patients had to endure inconvenience because RG Kar College and Hospital’s outdoor centres remained closed as a result of doctors’ and medical students’ protests over the incident.
Junior doctors had been handling emergency duty for the previous three days, but as of Monday am, they had stopped even doing so. An autopsy later revealed that the trainee doctor had been raped before being murdered. Her body, bearing signs of injuries, was found in a seminar hall at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. The accused, a volunteer for the community, was taken into police custody for 14 days after being arrested on Saturday, August 10.
The detective branch of Kolkata Police is expected to examine three doctors and a housekeeping staff member at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital regarding the rape and murder of the female trainee doctor after 11 a.m.
Police sources state that the following people will be questioned: a housekeeping staff member, two trainee doctors who are first-year post-graduate students from the department of chest medicine, and an intern physician.
The trainee doctor’s semi-naked body was found on August 9, the day the four persons who were called in were allegedly on night shift. Before the incident, a few of them had gone to eat with the victim.
West Bengal and other states saw a great deal of outrage over the occurrence, and doctors and medical students staged protests to bring those responsible for it accountable.
STRIKE BY DOCTORS IN DELHI
In the meantime, all elective treatments were discontinued as doctors at eleven government hospitals in Delhi, including Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital, went on strike in protest over the rape and murder of the trainee doctor in Kolkata.
According to a statement released by the Resident Doctors’ Associations (RDA), the strike started at 9 am and involves the following medical institutions: Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar Medical College, Maulana Azad Medical College, RML Hospital, Lady Hardinge Medical College, VMMC and Safdarjung Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, GTB, IHBAS, National Institute of TB and Respiratory Diseases Hospital.
The physicians who were protesting called for the security of medical professionals in hospitals throughout the nation as well as a CBI investigation into the situation.
Hospital emergency services will continue, even though OPD services were discontinued as a result of the protest.
