Mail News Service
Jamshedpur : Doctors today observed black badge protest at MGM, Medica and other hospitals on the Bengal attack on junior doctors. Mritunjay Singh, Secretary of IMA, Jamshedpur chapter said that the doctors community have become a soft target especially in Bengal. In the last few years the country has witnessed several such incidents wherein the aggrieved family members, relatives and acquaintances of the deceased patients tend to misbehave with the doctor on duty for his/her alleged negligence. Lodging strong protest against the conduct of the patients’ attendants, the IMA has said if things continue to move in such a fashion it would get difficult for doctors to perform their duty without fear.
Condemning the violence in West Bengal, doctors are protesting across the country.Junior doctors in West Bengal are on a strike since Tuesday after two of their colleagues were attacked and seriously injured at the NRS Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata.
Simultaneously, all the local branches and individual members of the IMA will send an appeal to the prime minister and the Union home minister, demanding a central Act on violence against doctors and hospitals. The IMA has also urged its state branches to communicate the information to the government doctors’ organisations of the states, request for their support and issue a press statement to this effect.
“The gruesome incident in NRS Medical College, Kolkata, is of barbaric nature. IMA condemns the violence perpetrated on a young doctor. The entire medical fraternity expresses solidarity with the resident doctors who are on strike. The IMA headquarters hereby declares All India Protest Day on Friday,” an IMA statement said.
The assault on the junior doctors following the death of a patient at the state-run NRS Medical College in Kolkata on Monday night left an intern seriously injured and the strike, which was initiated there, spread to medical institutions in the districts. Emergency wards, outdoor facilities and pathological units of many state-run medical colleges and hospitals and a number of private medical facilities in West Bengal have remained closed over the past two days in the wake of the protest.
