Almost 48 hours after the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front (WBJDF) called off the fast unto-death protest following a two-hour meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her officials, junior doctors said they will continue their movement until justice is served for their colleague and their unmet demands from the State are addressed. The Joint Platform of Doctors, West Bengal has already expressed its unhappiness with the outcome of Monday’s meeting, as have the junior doctors.
The co-conveners of the Joint Platform of Doctors, Punyabrata Gun and Hiralal Konar, raised questions in a joint statement following the meeting. It said: “The ring of corruption and criminalisation that is directly responsible for the brutal murder of the postgraduate trainee and the characters behind the scene responsible for the larger conspiracy continue to be patronised. In such a scenario, can the possibility of a repeat of such incidents be ruled out?
“We are deeply frustrated,” the statement said. “The State Government did not express any desire to reform the healthcare sector which has collapsed and introduce any fundamental changes. We have been made to understand no steps will be taken to end corruption in the education and recruitment system (of doctors and other healthcare staff). The State Government is not willing to prepare a safe environment for the girl students and female doctors. This will have long-term consequences and the responsibility of which will be on the Chief Minister.”
The junior doctors have decided to hold a mass convention on Saturday at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in which the next steps of the movement are expected to emerge. Meanwhile, on Tuesday and Wednesday, many campuses across the State held their own meetings to explore options.
Junior and senior doctors also said they are looking for ways to counter the culture of threats on medical college campuses, specifically after the Chief Minister’s instruction during the Monday meeting, which was followed by the Calcutta High Court order on Tuesday staying the suspension of 47 junior doctors and students at R G Kar Medical College.
“The first and foremost demand for the movement was speedy justice for Abhaya. Hence, we will continue our movement for justice and the few demands that the State Government has not met. We expect the shape of the movement and different activities to emerge from the upcoming mass convention at R G Kar Medical College,” said Trinesh Mondal, a junior doctor.
Junior doctors said that even though they left the dharna mancha at Esplanade, where they were protesting for nearly three weeks, the protest manchas on their respective campuses will remain for now.
“On a micro level, we will also be holding protests at regular intervals, especially against threat cultures, so that the individuals engaged in polluting the campus atmosphere are reminded that we are guarding the campus against such activities,” said a junior student at NRS Medical College.
The college council at R G Kar, which has representatives from junior doctors, convened a lengthy meeting to discuss the stay order on the suspension of the 47.doctors accused of being involved in illegalities on medical campuses.
“The college campus became so toxic in the past couple of years with the previous dispensation not entertaining any kind of complaint against a group engaged in all kinds of notorious activities, including forceful collection of money and mental and physical harassment of students. Hence, we will be taking all steps to ensure such activities do not return to the campus. We will soon chart out such steps,” said a junior doctor at R G Kar Medical College.
Sources in the WBJDF said they have started working on the modalities of nominating their representation to the State Level Task Force. In addition to the Saturday mass convention, the junior doctors said they will plan other mass connect events, and the core members of the front will be meeting online at regular intervals to develop such plans to keep their movement alive.
Meanwhile, in keeping with the decisions during Monday’s meeting, the Bengal Government issued a formal order including junior doctors in the apex committee which will keep tabs not only on the security and infrastructure upgrade in State-run healthcare institutions, the bed referral system but also the college-level committees, including Internal Complaints Committee (ICC). The 11-member committee, incidentally, will have six doctors’ representatives.
According to the formal notification issued by State Chief Secretary Manoj Pant, the committee that will meet once-a-month at least, will be chaired by him. It will have the State Director-General of Police and the Kolkata Police Commissioner as its members in addition to the State Home and Health Secretaries. As the junior doctors’ request to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, this committee will now also have two representatives each from the senior resident doctors and junior resident doctors.
It will have one member from the newly formed State-level grievance redressal committee and a female medical student representative.
The Government notification has not clearly spelt out how these junior doctors’ representatives will be selected, but the doctors had proposed they will do it “democratically and transparently”. The State has left it to the doctors to decide on their representatives.
The notification makes it clear that this panel will not only be an oversight committee for security and infrastructure upgrade. The doctors will now be more-than-equal stakeholders to roll out a centralised bed referral system and real-time bed availability monitoring system, and even installation of helplines, panic buttons. It also specified that the committee’s terms of reference will also include, “overseeing the functioning of various committees including the security audit committees and the internal complaints committee (ICC)”. Its scope has also been extended further to “collaborate and coordinate with all stakeholders to provide high-quality healthcare to citizens in Bengal”.
The Chief Secretary has also been allowed to invite or include experts during committee deliberations. The State also released a detailed note on the discussions in Nabanna on Monday, in which it clearly spelt out that “elections to students unions will be held by March 2025” but made it clear that representation of elected student representatives in college bodies can only be done after that. It also mentioned that principals cannot unilaterally take penal actions on complaints and grievances. The principal’s inquiry and recommendations must be given to Chief Secretary for necessary action.