KOLKATA/NEW DELHI: The junior doctors at Bengal hospitals said on Sunday that they were ready to hold talks with chief minister Mamata Banerjee at the venue of her choice.
After a meeting today, the junior doctors of NRS Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, where the assault took place, said: “We want immediate end to this impasse by discussion with the CM, which, to maintain transparency, shouldn’t be behind closed doors, but open to media under camera coverage”. The government is yet to respond.
“We leave it to the CM to choose the venue. We are ready to talk. We hope this discussion will be arranged and Banerjee will consider our demands that will help in restarting medical facilities again,” the general body of the doctors said.
The development comes on the sixth day of the protest. The agitating doctors earlier asserted that they were open to talks with the government, however, the venue was to be decided by a governing body of medical practitioners.
Doctors across the state called for a strike after two of their colleagues were brutally assaulted at the NRS Medical College and Hospital by the family members of a patient, who died on Monday night.
The services continue to remain affected in the emergency wards, outdoor facilities and pathological units of many state-run hospitals and private medical facilities in the state, leaving several patients in the lurch.
At a time when West Bengal is on the brink of a medical crisis as doctors in the state continue to protest, the kin of the patient whose death triggered the initial violence at NRSMCH said whoever is found guilty should be punished.
The family of Mohammad Sayeed (75), who died at NRSMCH, also claimed that it was not only their neighbours who were guilty but also some doctors who allegedly assaulted them, reported The Indian Express.
Sayeed’s kin also said that many are trying to give the incident a communal twist. Sayeed’s grandson Taiyab Hussain claimed that doctors also beat them and that CCTV footage will prove the same.

“Every citizen should have equal access to justice. Five of our neighbours were arrested and are now in jail. What about the doctors? Let the guilty be punished, be it our neighbours or the doctors,” he said.
Violent clashes broke out soon after Sayeed died at NRSMCH, following which one junior doctor was critically injured. The kin of Sayeed explained that CCTV footage will show that doctors attacked them as well and that it was not a “one-sided” clash.
The IMA has called a nationwide strike on June 17 if Mamata Banerjee does not meet the demands put forward by protesting doctors. (With Agency Inputs ).

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