Patients are suffering the consequences as the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) has announced a nationwide shutdown of OPD services starting Tuesday. This protest is in response to the sexual assault and murder of a female post-graduate trainee doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9.
The Outpatient Department (OPD) at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata was closed, leaving patients who arrived for medical care waiting in line amid uncertainty about the availability of services.
Sheikh Shahzad who came to avail OPD services said, “We have not been told anything so far. I asked the security guard here but he said that he is unable to tell us anything. We are standing here for two hours now. We have no information. The administration is not telling us anything. We are being asked for our prescription to enter the campus.”
Another patient in the queue mentioned that he had been waiting there for over two hours.
The patient said, “I have been standing here for two hours. We don’t know if the hospital is open. Nobody has told us anything.”
The IMA had issued a two-day ultimatum regarding their demands. “We submit to you our demand for the safe zone, defined security measures and Central Law on violence as deterrent measures. We hope you would consider our demands favourably in the light of the deteriorating ground situation,” the IMA letter reads.
The post-graduate trainee doctor was found to have been raped and murdered at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9.