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

With protesting junior doctors falling sick out of starvation, more and more doctors are joining the fasting protest at Kolkata’s Esplanade, braving heat, humidity, and deteriorating health

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.

300 hours without food or nutritional supplements

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. 

Three of her fellow protestors, Anustup Mukherjee, Pulastya Acharya, and Tanaya Panja, who started the hunger strike alongside her, are currently in intensive medical care at different State-run hospitals in the city after their condition deteriorated during their hunger strike. Soon after they fell sick, more junior doctors, namely Dr. Panda, Dr. Ghorui, Dr. Kumar, and Dr. Choudhury joined the hunger strike to keep their protest going.

Aniket Mahato, the first to get admitted for critical health issues arising from the hunger strike, was discharged from RGKMCH on Thursday. Dr. Mahato is an anaesthesiology postgraduate trainee at RGKMCH. 

“The condition of none of our hunger striker protestors is good. They are increasingly becoming weaker, and their various blood parameters are changing as a result of starvation. For the three who have been fasting for 13 days now, we are also seeing symptoms that suggest protein breakdown in their bodies,” Aniket Kar, a medical oncology housestaff from Medical College, Kolkata, said. 

Dr. Kar is one of the many junior doctors who stay at the protest site to accompany the doctors on hunger strike and offer them moral support. He said that that fasting doctors are regularly consulted in the decisions of the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front about how to take their protest movement forward.

“We wanted to maintain the authenticity of the hunger strike from the very beginning. So we have kept our fasting protestors under continuous CCTV surveillance and at arms’ length of the common people and the media,” he added.

Although the seven doctors were siloed off from other protestors and visitors for rest, a group of 29 civil society protestors at the same spot at Esplanade were simultaneously observing a 12-hour hunger strike from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, with many more non-fasting protestors sitting and spending time at the site to express solidarity.

Symbolic hunger strike by common people

“The least we can do is support our doctors by being present with them and showing support,” 33-year-old Shahenshah Alam, a disabled civilian protestor, said. Mr. Alam drove himself nearly 14 kilometres from Kolkata’s Thakurpukur to the protest site, in his wheelchair alone to join the doctors’ hunger strike. 

“I come here often but today I am observing a fast without water from sunrise to sunset,” he said. “That is the least I can do.” 

The protest site also saw several volunteers wearing ‘We Demand Justice’ and ‘Justice for Abhaya’ badges and tee shirts, who helped with crowd control and monitored the health of the fasting protestors. 

“Every day many people from different parts of the city are coming to observe symbolic hunger strikes to support the cause. We register their names and monitor their blood pressure through the entire duration of their fast,” Tulika Adhikary, one of the volunteers at the protest site, said.

Meanwhile, across State-run hospitals, junior doctors have resumed work in emergency, in-patient, as well as outpatient services, occasionally observing 12-hour and 24-hour symbolic fasts while on duty, or at the protest site in Esplanade.

Hunger strike at North Bengal Medical College

Outside Kolkata, at North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Siliguri, two doctors namely Alok Kumar Verma and Souvik Majumder are under medical treatment after observing a hunger strike for several days. 

“The State does not understand that the permanent health damage this hunger strike is causing to our doctors will have a lasting impact on the future of our society,” 64-year-old Sudip Choudhury, a retired staffer of the Home Affairs department of the West Bengal government, said. Along with his wife and neighbours, he travelled over 20 kilometres from New Town to the protest site to show solidarity with the doctors on hunger strike. 

“I wanted to meet the doctors and hug them out of love. They are putting themselves through so much pain to help society at large,” 62-year-old Sinthi Kana Ghatak, a homoeopathy practitioner who travelled with Mr. Choudhury from New Town, said. 

Published - October 18, 2024 10:16 pm IST