Kolkata, January 19 (IANS). 38 doctors of West Bengal's state-owned Medinipur Medical College and Hospital are on hunger strike against the state government's decision to suspend 12 doctors.
Junior doctors started protesting on Saturday night. Last week, 12 doctors were suspended in connection with the death of a woman and her newborn baby. It is alleged that he died due to being given expired Ringer's Lactate.
The protesting doctors say that the 12 doctors who have been suspended (6 junior and 6 senior), it is an attempt to divert attention from the real issue. His argument is that the real cause of death was expired medicine, which was supplied by Pascal Bang Pharmaceuticals Limited. This company has been blacklisted first by Karnataka and then by West Bengal government.
The suspended doctors also include the medical superintendent-cum-vice principal and resident medical officer (RMO) of the hospital.
Last week, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced the suspension of these doctors and almost gave a clean chit to the medicine supplying company.
A doctor on hunger strike said, “We have been repeatedly appealing to revoke the suspension of 12 doctors. We have also sent emails to several departments on this issue, but did not receive any response. Ultimately, we went on hunger strike. “This protest is an extension of our partial strike which started a few days ago.”
The case is being investigated at two levels: one by a team of experts appointed by the state health department and the other by the Criminal Investigation Department of the West Bengal Police.
Service Doctors Forum (SDF), an organization of doctors working in West Bengal, has appealed to Governor C.V. A judicial inquiry has been demanded from Anand Bose in this matter.
SDF alleges that an attempt is being made to divert attention from the real reason by suspending the doctors. He says that it is clear in the postmortem report that the woman died on January 10 due to the reaction of medicine or saline. Despite this, suspending 12 doctors is an attempt to divert attention from the real issue.
–IANS
AS/
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