India's medics on strike to protest rape and killing of doctor in Kolkata
CBC
Hospitals and clinics across India turned away patients except for emergency cases on Saturday as medical professionals started a 24-hour shutdown to protest the brutal rape and killing of a doctor in the eastern city of Kolkata.
More than one million doctors were expected to join the strike, paralyzing medical services across the world's most populous nation. Hospitals said faculty staff from medical colleges had been pressed into service for emergency cases.
The government, in a statement issued on Saturday after a meeting with representatives of medical associations, urged doctors to return to duties in the public interest.
A 31-year old trainee doctor was raped and killed on Aug. 9 inside the medical college in Kolkata where she worked, triggering nationwide protests among doctors and drawing parallels to the notorious gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi in 2012.
The strike cut off access to elective medical procedures and out-patient consultations, according to a statement by the Indian Medical Association (IMA).
"Junior doctors have all been on strike, so this would mean 90 per cent of doctors are on strike," Sanjeev Singh Yadav, a representative of the IMA in the southern state of Telangana, told Reuters.
Outside the RG Kar Medical College, where the crime took place, a heavy police presence was seen on Saturday while the hospital premises were deserted, according to the ANI news agency.
Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, which includes Kolkata, has backed the protests across the state, demanding the investigation be fast-tracked and the guilty be punished in the strongest way possible.
A large number of private clinics and diagnostic centres remained closed in Kolkata on Saturday.
Dr. Sandip Saha, a private pediatrician in the city, told Reuters he would not attend to patients except in emergencies.
Hospitals and clinics in Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Guwahati in Assam and Chennai in Tamil Nadu and other cities joined the strike, set to be one of the largest shutdown of hospital services in recent memory.
Patients lined up at hospitals, some unaware that the agitation would not allow them to get medical attention.
"I have spent 500 rupees ($8 Cdn) on travel to come here. I have paralysis and a burning sensation in my feet, head and other parts of my body," an unidentified patient at SCB Medical College and Hospital in the city of Cuttack in Odisha state told local television.
"We were not aware of the strike. What can we do? We have to return home."
