The continuing protests by the junior doctors of West Bengal against the ghastly rape and murder of a junior woman doctor of R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata in August this year are not in self-interest but in the larger public interest, Indian Medical Association's (IMA) national President R.V. Asokan said on Friday.
"The junior doctors are protesting against the rampant corruption in the healthcare system. They are speaking against the lack of safety at their workplaces which are hospitals. They are not carrying their protests out of self-interest… Their protests are in the larger public interest. They have really touched my heart. I want to say that IMA is beside them," R.V. Asokan said after reaching the dais at Esplanade in central Kolkata where six junior doctors are continuing their fast-unto-death protests in support of their demands on the issue.
However, at the same time, R.V. Asokan requested the fasting doctors to withdraw their agitation.
"Life comes first. Do not adopt the extreme step," he was heard appealing to the doctors on hunger strike.
Already Aniket Mahato, one of the seven junior doctors who were conducting the fast-unto-death agitation, had been admitted at R.G. Kar after Thursday midnight after his medical conditions deteriorated sharply. The panel of doctors attending him had claimed that although his condition had slightly improved from what it was on Thursday, he was yet to be out of the crisis.
Meanwhile, the medical conditions of the remaining six junior doctors who are continuing their hunger, namely Tanaya Panja, Snigdha Hazra, Sayantani Ghosh Hazra, Anushtup Mukhopadhyay, Arnab Mukhopadhyay, and Pulastya Acharya, too have started showing deteriorations. While ketone bodies have been detected in their urine, their blood pressure levels have started fluctuating and pulse rates are high.
"Even Aniket initially refused to get admitted to the hospital last night. But we somehow convinced him. The state government can choose to act in an inhuman manner. But we have the responsibility towards our colleague," said Debasish Halder, one of the principal faces of the junior doctors' movement on this issue.
