West Bengal’s public healthcare delivery system has virtually collapsed, as resident doctors of government medical colleges continue to protest against the state’s non-sympathetic attitude towards their security concerns. To make matters worse, a few hundred senior doctors have tendered their resignations in the last few of days to show solidarity with the striking junior doctors.
This round of agitation started after the relatives of an elderly patient, who died on Monday at a medical college in Kolkata, alleged that he died due to negligence. Things took a turn for the worse soon after as hundreds of people entered the college premises and thrashed junior doctors brutally.
It must be noted that this is not a one-off incident. Cases of vandalism and assaults on doctors in hospitals for reasons such as a patient’s death because of alleged medical negligence have become a regular phenomenon in West Bengal. The situation became so alarming a year and a half ago that the state government wanted to introduce taekwondo for self-defence for medical students in all government medical colleges.