Junior doctors refuse to end strike, to meet Bengal chief secretary at 6:30pm | Kolkata

KOLKATA: Junior doctors who have been protesting since August 10 sought a meeting with West Bengal chief secretary Manoj Pant on Wednesday to discuss some “unresolved” issues involving the development of the healthcare system, safety, security and prevailing threat culture in hospitals.

The doctors who have struck work for over a month over the brutal rape and murder of a young doctor, have said that they will not end their protest till the government meets all of their five demands.

In a letter to the state’s top bureaucrat on Wednesday, the doctors recalled their five-hour meeting with chief minister Mamata Banerjee. “We were assured in the meeting (held on Monday), a special task force presided by you will be formed to address these issues and further discussions with us would take place regarding its formulation and function. We would like to sit in a meeting with you and other members of the task force today regarding the same,” the letter said.

Pant later responded to the request and invited the doctors for a meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday.

A 31-year-old second-year postgraduate student was found dead on the hospital premises on August 9. A Kolkata Police civic volunteer, Sanjoy Roy, was arrested by the city police a day after the crime. The case, now under CBI, has stirred massive protests across the state.

At its hearing on Tuesday, the Supreme Court recorded that the striking junior doctors were ready to return to work, provided their general body approves it and that the confidence-building measures, agreed upon during their meeting with Mamata Banerjee, are put in place. The bench also noted that junior doctors “do not get any pleasure in abstaining from work” but that they are striking because of “insecure premises” and “unsafe working conditions” which the state government is obligated to take care of.

In a post on X, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP and the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee appealed to the doctors to consider ending the protest as a goodwill gesture and work with the state government to serve the people since the state government has met most of their demands.

“Since day one, I have supported the doctors in their concerns regarding safety and security, and I have always maintained that most of their concerns, barring a few, are valid, sensible and justified,” the TMC MP said in the post.

He added that most measures for improving safety and security, including the installation of CCTV cameras and infrastructural developments in medical colleges and hospitals across West Bengal were in place and were expected to be completed within 14 days.

The government has also replaced Kolkata’s police commissioner and transferred three senior police and health department officials.

After a meeting on Tuesday to discuss their next steps, the junior doctors had underlined that they also demanded the removal of the state’s health secretary.

“No such decision was taken in the meeting. Even though the chief minister had given a verbal assurance, no such steps has been taken yet. Also, we had demanded strengthening infrastructure and ensuring safety and security in hospitals. Even though we had demanded task forces at every medical college we were only assured of a state-level task force. Even though the chief minister has announced that the Rogi Kalyan Samities would be reconstituted, no such steps have been initiated. The government should solve these issues so that we can resume duty at the earliest. The sit-in will continue,” Aniket Mahata, a junior doctor told reporters after the meeting on Tuesday.