Doctors and medical students protested at Nair Hospital in Mumbai on Tuesday following the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) calling for a nationwide OPD shutdown. The protest was in response to the sexual assault and murder of a woman post-graduate trainee doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9.
BMC MARD General Secretary Dr Akshay Dongardive said, “The woman doctor was on duty when she was raped. Post–mortem said that blood was oozing from her private parts. This is a major rape-murder case after the Nirbhaya incident. It puts us all to shame. We have joined in the nationwide protest. All resident doctors across all government hospitals in Maharashtra are observing suspension of services today. Emergency services are still operational, patients are not facing any issues.”
He added that there should be a Central Protection Act for doctors.
“We demand justice for our sister with whom injustice has been done. We request the State Government and Centre to intervene and order a CBI inquiry at the earliest. All demands of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital doctors should be met. Nearly 40,000 doctors in Maharashtra are on strike,” he further said.
In Nagpur, doctors and medical students held a protest in front of the OPD at Government Medical College & Hospital (GMCH).
Dr Diksha Bajaj from the hospital said, “Doctors spend more time in hospitals than they do at their home. This is our second home. If we are not safe here, where will be safe? We demand our safety and nothing else. We are serving the patients but our safety is important too. If we are not safe, how will we do our work? We want justice. We will call off our strike, once we get justice.”
Patients are facing the consequences of FAIMA’s nationwide OPD service shutdown. At RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, the Outpatient Department (OPD) was closed, leaving patients waiting in line for medical services amidst uncertainty about service availability.
A patient in the queue reported that he had been waiting for over two hours.
The patient said, “We have been standing here for two hours. We don’t know if the hospital is open. Nobody has told us anything.”
IMA has addressed a letter to Union Minister J.P. Nadda, calling for a thorough investigation into the factors that allowed the crime to occur, and requesting measures to enhance the safety of doctors, particularly women, in their work environments.
“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.
On August 9, a post-graduate trainee doctor was found to have been raped and murdered at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.
