Seeking justice for the female doctor who was sexually assaulted and killed in RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata last week, and push for a safe work place, doctors across the country have called for a strike on Saturday.
The Indian Medical Association has called for a “24 hour withdrawal of services” across the country and across public and private hospitals, IMA President Dr RV Asokan told businessline. The strike will start at 6 am on Saturday (August 17) and end on Sunday (6 am). Emergency and casualty services will not be affected, he said. However, OPD (out patient department) services and elective surgeries will be impacted, he added.
IMA representatives, including the National President and Secretary General, were in Kolkata along with IMA’s Action Committee on Wednesday, to meet the parents of the deceased and the protesting doctors, said Dr Vinay Aggarwal. The strike on August 17 reflects the medical fraternity’s anger on the incident that took place in the hospital premises and the second attack by goons, he said. The call is for a Central Act to protect doctors from violence, to declare hospitals a safe zone and to investigate and punish the offenders, and give her family a “respectable compensation,” he said. The IMA represents approximately four lakh doctors and another 400-odd medical collages.
On the strike’s impact on patients, Dr Harjit Singh Bhatti, national president, Progressive Medicos and Scientists Forum (PMSF), a non-profit organisation of doctors and scientists, said, “No doctor wants to strike. But no one is listening and doctors are working in extreme conditions and dying. There is distrust and fear, especially among women colleagues, that they cannot be safe in their duty-rooms.”
Meanwhile, Federation of Resident Doctors Associations (FORDA) has resumed it’s strike following the attack on the Kolkata hospital that was ground-zero of the crime and the doctors protest that followed.