Where is the CM’s maternal affection, Kolkata’s junior doctors ask after 13 days of hunger strike

Seven doctors on hunger strike in Kolkata for 13 days, demanding justice and improved healthcare services in State-run hospitals.

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 (October 18, 2024) 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 (October 18, 2024). 

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.