Bangkok Post – Indian doctors strike in protest against murder of colleague

Hospitals across the country affected: Doctors outraged by rape murder demand better protection

KOLKATA – Hospitals and clinics across India turned away patients except for emergency cases on Saturday as medical staff initiated a 24-hour shutdown in protest against the brutal rape and murder of a doctor in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata.

More than a million doctors are expected to join the strike, which would paralyze health services in the world's most populous country. Hospitals said teaching staff from medical schools had been deployed for emergency cases.

The strike, which began at 6 a.m. local time, cut off people's access to planned medical procedures and outpatient consultations, the Indian Medical Association said in a statement.

A 31-year-old doctor-in-training was raped and murdered last week in the medical college where she was working in Kolkata, sparking nationwide protests among doctors and drawing parallels with the infamous gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi in 2012.

According to news agency ANI, there was a heavy police presence outside the RG Kar Medical College, where the crime took place, on Saturday, while the hospital premises were deserted.

Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of West Bengal, which includes Kolkata, supported the nationwide protests and called for an expedited investigation and the strictest possible punishment for those responsible.

In Kolkata, numerous private clinics and diagnostic centers remained closed on Saturday.

Dr. Sandip Saha, a private pediatrician in the city, told Reuters that he would only attend patients in emergency cases.

In the state of Odisha, patients were queuing up and senior doctors were trying to cope with the rush, said Dr. Prabhas Ranjan Tripathy, chief medical officer at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the city of Bhubaneswar.

“The junior doctors are on a comprehensive strike and therefore the pressure is increasing on all faculty members, including senior doctors,” he said.

Patients lined up outside hospitals, some of them unaware that they would not receive medical care because of the unrest.

“I spent Rs 500 to come here. I am paralysed and have a burning sensation in my feet, head and other parts of my body,” a patient at SCB Medical College Hospital in Cuttack in Odisha told a local television channel.

“We didn't know about the strike. What can we do? We have to go back home.”

Anger at the failure of strict laws to curb growing violence against women has led to protests by doctors and women's groups.

“Women are the majority of our profession in this country. We have repeatedly asked for their safety,” IMA President RV Asokan told Reuters on Friday.

According to a police source in Kolkata, India's Central Bureau of Investigation has summoned a number of medical students from RG Kar College to ascertain the circumstances of the crime.

The CBI also questioned the hospital director on Friday, the police source said.