Bengal: Junior docs withdraw hunger strike after meeting with Mamata

Agitating junior doctors on Monday evening, 21 October, withdrew their weeks-long hunger strike over the R.G. Kar incident, hours after a meeting with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

The medics also called off their proposed shutdown in the state’s health sector on Tuesday.

“In today’s meeting (with the CM), we did get the assurance of some directives, but the body language of the state government was not positive... The common people have wholeheartedly supported us. They, as well as the parents of our deceased sister (R.G. Kar hospital victim), have been requesting us to call off the hunger strike, keeping in mind our deteriorating health.

“We are therefore withdrawing our ‘fast-unto-death’ and also Tuesday’s total shutdown in the health sector,” said Debashish Halder, one of the junior medics.

The decision was taken following a general body meeting of the doctors.

Earlier in the day, a 17-member delegation of the medics met Banerjee at the state secretariat and discussed various issues, including the prevailing "threat culture" in hospitals, justice for their deceased colleague and systemic changes in the state's healthcare infrastructure.

During the talks, held on the 17th day of the ‘fast-unto-death’ by a section of the agitating doctors, which was streamed live for the first time, Banerjee urged the junior medics to end their fast, stating that most of their demands had been addressed, while rejecting the one on removing the state health secretary.

Although both sides agreed on the prevailing threat culture, they differed on the underlying forces and situations that promote it.

“At R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, several junior doctors and medical students were suspended without following proper procedures and rules. How can these students or resident doctors be suspended just on the basis of complaints? Who gave the college authorities the right to take such a step without informing the state government? Isn’t this a threat culture?” the chief minister said.

Aniket Mahato, an agitating doctor who had to be hospitalised after five days of fasting, countered Banerjee by saying those who were suspended “have been very much part of the threat culture and don’t deserve to be doctors.”

“If needed, the state government can assess their performance and then decide. The atmosphere of the medical college campus has been vitiated by these goons under the guise of students. If you recheck their answer sheets, you will see these students don’t deserve to get even pass marks,” he claimed.

The junior doctors had been on a ‘fast-unto-death’ since 5 October, calling for justice for the R.G. Kar hospital medic, who was raped and murdered in August, among the other demands.

The medics had threatened to escalate their protest by organising a strike of all medical professionals in West Bengal on 22 October if their demands were not met.

The hunger strike was preceded by nearly 50 days of 'cease work' in two phases.