[ad_1]
In the capital New Delhi, junior doctors in white coats held posters reading “Doctors are not punching bags” and sat outside a large government hospital in protest, demanding an investigation, Reuters TV reported.
Thousands of patients were stranded and services at some hospitals were affected in cities including Lucknow, the capital of India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, and the western tourist resort of Goa due to similar protests, according to media reports.
“Poor working conditions, inhuman workloads and violence in the workplace are a reality,” the Indian Medical Association, the country’s largest doctors’ body, said in a letter to Health Minister JP Nadda.
A spokesman for the Department of Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Although Kolkata police arrested a volunteer on suspicion of murdering the doctor over the weekend and the principal of the medical college where the case occurred has resigned, doctors still insist that their working environment is unsafe.
City Police Commissioner Vineet Kumar Goyal told reporters that police have registered a case against the suspect under legal provisions related to rape and murder.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee told reporters she had given state police a deadline of Sunday to complete the investigation or she would hand over the probe to the federal agency.
Emergency services at almost all government medical college hospitals in Kolkata were suspended on Tuesday, Kolkata state official NS Nigam told Reuters, adding that the government was assessing the impact of the move on health services.
India’s overcrowded and often filthy public hospitals house overworked, underpaid and sometimes violently attacked by people angry about inadequate care.
[ad_2]
Source link
