KOLKATA: Junior doctors in Bengal started 'cease-work 2.0' Tuesday over unfulfilled safety and other commitments made by the state govt, less than a fortnight after resuming emergency and essential services in state-run hospitals caught in the mayhem of a 42-day protest triggered by the Aug 9 rape-murder of a postgraduate student at Kolkata's RG Kar Medical College.
"Be it installation of CCTV cameras, recruitment of police or measures to enhance patient services like a centralised referral system and bed-vacancy monitoring, we see virtually no progress," the West Bengal Junior Doctors' Front (WBJDF) said after a 10-hour meeting, starting late Monday and stretching till 3.30am. More than 7,000 junionr doctors from the state did not report for emergency duties.
The trigger for the renewed agitation was an assault on doctors and other medical staff at College of Medicine and Sagore Dutta Hospital in North 24-Parganas, on the outskirts of Kolkata, over a patient's death a few days ago.
Sources said the Mamata Banerjee govt could seek legal opinion on how to handle the alleged "gap between what junior doctors are saying in SC and their action on the ground". The govt is also keeping options open for "Track 2 diplomacy".
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