West Bengal Doctors’ Continue Strike Even As Mamata Banerjee Accepts All Demands
Stalemate between doctors and West Bengal government continues.
Agitating doctors turned down the invite for a closed-door meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the state secretariat on Saturday, raising apprehension about their security, and instead asked her to visit the NRS Medical College and Hospital for an open discussion to resolve the impasse.
The doctors said no representative of the agitating doctors would be attending the meeting called by Banerjee at the state secretariat on Saturday evening. “We feel highly insecure and apprehensive regarding our representatives' meeting with the chief minister behind closed doors,” said a spokesperson of the joint forum of junior doctors after holding a governing body meeting. “That is why we are not sending any representatives to the Chief Minister's Office to attend the meeting.”
In a media conference, Mamata Banerjee that her government had accepted all of the doctors' demands. She assured them that no police action would be taken against any protesting doctor.
The doctors have invited Banerjee for a meeting at the Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital, where two doctors were allegedly assaulted by relatives of a patient who had died on Monday night. “We humbly request the chief minister to meet all of us at the NRSMCH to discuss and implement all our demands at the earliest,” the spokesperson said. “We are open to a healthy discussion to find a solution to meet our demands. We are deeply concerned about the sufferings of the common people,” he added.
On Friday night, the agitating junior doctors declined to attend a meeting called by Banerjee at state secretariat, Nabanna, saying it was a ploy to break their stir. After the protesting doctors did not turn up, Banerjee gave them time again at 5 pm on Saturday.
Meanwhile, resignation by senior doctors continued in support of their protesting colleagues. Over 300 medicos across various state-run medical college and hospitals have resigned from their services.
With PTI inputs