Kolkata: Junior doctors on Monday had visited Raj Bhavan to submit deputation to Governor CV Ananda Bose expressing their ‘grief’ over the CBI chargesheet and their other concerns about the RG Kar issue.
After meeting the Governor, the protesting doctors said that they could only hand over the deputation to the Governor in person and also that the officers associated with the Governor had spoken with them and heard about their concerns.
According to a press statement issued by Raj Bhavan, “Governor received the memorandum from the WB Junior Doctors’ Front on their concerns about the RG Kar issue. The delegation consisted of Mostafi Ahmed, Debashish Halder, Satyadip Sarkar, A. Ashraf and another. Governor has taken up the matter with the relevant authorities for immediate action.”
Meanwhile, senior doctors after meeting with the health officials at Swasthya Bhawan called the meeting as ‘disappointing’.
Senior Dr. Utpal Bandhopadhyay said that he was ‘not satisfied’ with the outcome of the meeting.
“We have asked for the timeline for implementation of the demands by the junior doctors but we didn’t get any affirmative reply. It is really frustrating and depressing,” said Bandhopadhyay.
Dr. Subarna Goswami said that they have invited both the Chief Secretary and Home Secretary to take part in ‘Droher Carnival’ called by the doctors.
“The street protest is the only alternative for pressing the demands. We have asked them to visit the protest site and announce that the government has accepted all the 10 demands, but they didn’t want to accompany us,” mentioned Goswami.
However, Chief Secretary Manoj Pant after meeting with the senior doctors said that the government had accepted seven out of ten demands.
“Three demands are still not accepted by the administration. It is upto the administration to clear them. We cannot give any timeline like that. We have asked the doctors not to hold Droher Carnival alongside Durga carnival,” added Pant.
According to sources, the demands which are not met yet are removal of the Health Secretary, holding elections in the students' body and probe in medical council irregularities.
Junior medic Debashish Haldar said, “The assurance given by the health officials are false. We cannot see anything. Entire Durga Puja has been spent at the protest site and several doctors are also on hunger strike. If the state government wants, the demands can be implemented in minutes. We will conduct a human chain during Durga carnival.”
On the other hand, senior doctors of several private hospitals also held ‘cease work’ from Monday.
IMA had asked the doctors to sit on a 12 hours symbolic hunger strike across the country on October 15.
