With protesting junior doctors falling sick out of starvation, more and more doctors are joining the hunger strike at Kolkata’s Esplanade, braving heat, humidity, and deteriorating health
Seven doctors continue to remain on hunger strike at Kolkata’s Esplanade, with three of them continuing their fast for the 13th consecutive day on Friday in protest of the State’s non-fulfilment of the junior doctors’ ten-point demands.
Six junior doctors of West Bengal started a ‘fast unto death’ on October 5 evening to dial up pressure on the government to fulfil their ten-point demands. Those include justice for the doctor who was raped and killed at R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital (RGKMCH) on August 9, removal of the State health secretary, and increased security and improved patient services across State-run hospitals.
On Friday, amidst rising heat and humidity in the city, seven junior doctors namely Snighda Hazra, Sayantani Ghosh Hazra, Arnab Mukherjee, Parichay Panda, Alolika Ghorui, Rumelika Kumar, and Spandan Choudhury remained on hunger strike at the heart of the city, flanked by supporters both from and outside the medical fraternity. Of them, Dr. Mukherjee, Dr. Hazra, and Dr. Ghosh Hazra started their fast the earliest, from 8.30 p.m. on October 5, and have crossed 300 hours without food or nutritional supplements.
“Even after 13 days of continuous fasting, we are not crippled by hunger. We are crippled by the lack of justice,” Dr. Ghosh Hazra said on Friday.
She added that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s name has the word ‘motherhood’ in it and that the junior doctors are like her children. “Where is her mother-like nature now? Why has she not thought of coming here and speaking to us for even ten minutes?” she asked.
“We have been on hunger strike for our ten-point demands. We are only having water. No ORS, salt, or sugar. And yet, she [the Chief Minister] did not think of us or speak about us even for once?” Dr. Ghosh Hazra said.
Dr. Ghosh Hazra is a third-year pathology postgraduate trainee at Kolkata’s KPC Medical College and Hospital. Three of her fellow protestors, Anustup Mukherjee, Pulastya Acharya, and Tanaya Panja, who started the hunger strike alongside her, are currently in intensive medical care at different State-run hospitals in the city after their condition deteriorated during their hunger strike.
Meanwhile, across State-run hospitals, junior doctors have resumed work in emergency, in-patient, as well as outpatient services, occasionally observing 12-hour and 24- hour symbolic fasts while on duty, or at the protest site in Esplanade.