Hospital services were disrupted in several Indian cities on Tuesday (Aug. 13) after doctors' protests spread across the country following the rape and murder of a trainee doctor in the city of Kolkata, authorities and media said.
Thousands of doctors protested on Monday (Aug. 12) in Kolkata and the surrounding state of West Bengal to denounce the killings at a government-run hospital, demanding justice for the victims and better security measures.
The 31-year-old doctor was found dead on Friday (August 9). Police said she had been raped and murdered and a police volunteer was later arrested in connection with the crime.
Protests spread on Tuesday, with more than 8,000 government doctors in Maharashtra state, where the financial capital Mumbai is located, stopping work in all hospital departments except emergency services, media said.
In the capital, New Delhi, young doctors wearing white coats held placards reading, “Doctors are not punching bags,” as they sat in protest outside a major government hospital, Reuters television footage showed.
Similar protests in cities such as Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh's most populous state, and in the western tourist state of Goa have hit some hospital services, media said.
“Inhumane working conditions, inhumane workloads and workplace violence are a reality,” the Indian Medical Association (IMA), the country’s largest doctors’ group, told Health Minister JP Nadda in a letter released before they met him for talks on Tuesday.
IMA Secretary General Anil Kumar J Nayak told news agency ANI that his group had urged Nadda to increase security at medical facilities.
The health ministry has not commented so far.
The high court in Kolkata ordered the criminal probe to be transferred to India's federal police, the Central Bureau of Investigation, indicating that authorities are treating the case as a national priority.
Emergency services remained suspended on Tuesday at almost all government-run medical college hospitals in Kolkata, state official NS Nigam told Reuters, adding that the government was assessing the impact on healthcare services.
Doctors in India's crowded and often rundown government hospitals have long complained of being overworked and underpaid. They also say not enough is being done to curb violence directed at them by people angry about the medical care they receive. (lt/uh)
