Docs skip work to protest attack

Police officers with Sabyasachi Das at NBMCH on Thursday. Pic: Kundan Yolmo

TT, Siliguri, May 28: Junior doctors of North Bengal Medical College and Hospital stopped work this morning demanding the arrest of a hospital Group D employee and three others who allegedly attacked four of them yesterday.

The junior doctors, who also demanded more security on the hospital campus, joined work in the evening after they were assured that a meeting would be convened to discuss security measures.

Around 100 interns and house staff members, demonstrated at superintendent Sabyasachi Das's office from 10am today.
"Incidents of assault on doctors happen here all the time because there isn't adequate security. Private guards posted at the entrance to the wards are not able to prevent outsiders from entering, let alone stop them from attacking us," a junior doctor said.

"Junior doctors were assaulted yesterday by a group of around 10 men, including a Group D employee. They have not been arrested. The junior doctors are feeling insecure. We demand that these persons be arrested immediately and adequate security be provided to us so that we can work without any fear," he added.

There are around 120 house staff members and interns at the hospital who are junior doctors.

Interns are MBBS students who are undergoing compulsory internship in their final year and house staff have completed MBBS and work on a monthly stipend for six months to one year.

Yesterday, four junior doctors were attacked in the female medicine ward after they protested the alleged misbehaviour by Rupam Adhikari, who had escorted a woman to get anti-rabies vaccine.

After an hour, Manish Sharma, an on-duty house staff member and three interns, were assaulted by 10 persons, including Raja Ismail, a group D employee, for pushing Adhikari out of the ward.

Sharma suffered head injuries and had to be admitted to the hospital.

Ismail is a contract worker at the hospital.

Later, NBMCH principal Samir Ghosh Roy, Das and some senior doctors were confined to the hospital superintendent's chamber from 8pm to 1am by junior doctors while more than 500 local people gathered near the two gates of NBMCH threatening to beat up the junior doctors.

Today, when Ghosh Roy reached the superintendent's office around 12:30pm, junior doctors started protesting. They had lodged an FIR yesterday.

The protesters shouted and pushed around reporters and photographers who had gone to cover the incident. A senior faculty member took away the camera of a photographer. On his instructions, pictures of the incident were deleted from the camera by a junior doctor claiming that it was an internal matter.

Today around 7.30pm, junior doctors had an argument with few private security guards at the hospital.

Today, private ambulance drivers under the banner of INTTUC-affiliated Sushuratanagar Social Ambulance Service Society that operates 84 vehicles here did not work saying junior doctors had unnecessarily named Pappu Ghosh and Kalyan Roy Chowdhury, the general secretary and president of their association, in the FIR.

Police sources said Raja Ismail was arrested this evening.

Trinamul councillors Krishna Pal, Ranjan Sarkar and Alok Bhakta, leaders of Trinamul Chattra Parishad, and Arup Ratan Ghosh, the district president of INTTUC, visited NBMCH and held a meeting with the authorities.

Bholanath Pandey, the additional deputy commissioner of Siliguri metropolitan police, assistant commissioner of police Pinaki Majumdar and Manabendra Das were also present.

"We have come here on the instruction of minister Gautam Deb to ensure that normalcy is not hampered. One person has been arrested in connection with yesterday's incident and he is not connected with Trinamul. As far as the two persons of INTTUC-affiliated ambulance drivers' association is concerned, the doctors who were assaulted have said there might have been a mistake in identifying them. They are willing to see if the duo were actually involved in the incident. The INTTUC leaders will hold a meeting with local Trinamul leaders and try to resolve the issue," Pal said.

The police said adequate security has been provided at NBMCH. "We have deployed additional police personnel and frequent patrolling is being conducted. A joint meeting with the police, NBMCH representatives and junior doctors would be held soon to decide on security measures. We are conducting raids and the culprits would be arrested soon," Pandey said.

The agitation was lifted after the assurance.

Das said: "The Group D staff is not directly employed by NBMCH. He has been engaged by a private agency and he works on contract basis. He was arrested today. Police have been posted at gynaecology, medicine and labour wards where such incidents are frequent."