Kolkata, Oct 13 (UNI) One more fasting medic - Anustup Mukherjee - was admitted to a city hospital after he suffered stomach pain and his health deteriorated following a hunger strike, which entered the 10th day on Sunday.
Official sources said Mukherjee was admitted to the Critical Care Unit (CCU) of Calcutta Medical College and Hospital late Saturday night. He is the third fast junior medic hospitalised in the past 48 hours.
Before Mukherjee Dr Aniket Mahato and Dr Aloke Verma were admitted in the RG Kar Hospital and North Bengal Medical Hospital respectively.
The medics under tyhe banner of West Bengal Junior Doctors Front have been protesting since August 9 after a 31-year-old woman postgraduate trainee doctor was found allegedly raped and murdered at her workplace RG Kar Hospital.
The medics served a 10-point memorandum of demands, including exemplary punishment to those responsible for the death of the woman doctor and the arrest of those allegedly involved in corruption in the government hospitals. They have also sought the removal of state Health Secretary Narayan Swaroop Nigam.
About 77 medics of Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Hospital, Kalyani, on Sunday, threatened to resign en masse if the junior doctors' demands were not conceded.
Hundreds of senior doctors, faculty and professors associated with eight government hospitals have already signed mass resignation letters to express their solidarity with the juniors and in groups they also joined a symbolic fast with the protesters at Esplanade.
The West Bengal government on Saturday clarified that the “mass resignation” of senior doctors in various state-run medical colleges and hospitals have no legal value.
“These mass resignations, as they are being said, have no legal value. Resignation is a subject between the employer and the employee to be discussed in terms of specific service rules. If any individual wants to tender resignation from the government service, in terms of the given service rules, the individual has to write to the employer. This kind of a generic letter has no legal standing,” chief advisor to chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Alapan Bandyopadhyay read out at the state secetariat Nabanna before the media.
Meanwhile, the doctors of four more private hospitals in the city- BM Birla, Woodlands, Peerless and Kothari - have threatened to keep away from non-essential services on Monday and Tuesday in support of the agitating junior doctors' demands.
They said barring emergencies, all non-emergency functions, including outdoors, will not function on the two days and a decision would be taken on October 15 on the future course of action. UNI PC SSP