Chhattisgarh doctors support striking Bengal counterparts

Doctors at major government-run hospitals in Chhattisgarh staged protests Friday in solidarity with the ongoing agitation by junior doctors in West Bengal against the assault on their colleagues in the eastern state. Around 400 junior doctors of Dr B R Ambedkar Memorial Hospital, Raipur - the biggest government hospital in the state - staged a protest from 8 am to 2 pm in premises of the medical facility.

As part of the protest, they stayed away from attending out-patient departments (OPDs) and operation theatres (OTs), Bhagwati Chandra Verma, president, Junior Doctors Association (JUDA) here, told PTI. Holding posters and placards, the protesting doctors raised slogans in support of the agitating physicians in West Bengal and their demands, he said.

However, emergency services were unaffected due to the protest, Verma said. Senior doctors of the hospital did not take part in the stir, but attended their work wearing black bandages as a mark of support to their junior colleagues, Verma said.

Junior doctors in medical colleges of Ambikapur and Rajnandgaon districts also staged similar protests in their respective premises, he added. At the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Raipur, senior and junior resident doctors, interns and students - around 500 in number - staged a protest from 8 am to 1 pm, said Rajendra Choudhary, an intern and former president of the AIIMS Medical Students Union, Raipur.

Doctors stayed away from OPDs during this period, but services in the emergency section remained unaffected, he said. "We fully stand by the protesting doctors in Kolkata.

We demand that the government implement a central medical protection act and ensure a safe environment for doctors in the field, Choudhary asserted. Junior doctors in West Bengal are on a strike since Tuesday, demanding better security at the workplace after two of their colleagues were attacked and seriously injured at the NRS Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata allegedly by relatives of a patient who died at the hospital.

The Indian Medical Association has declared Friday as the "All India Protest Day" against the assault on junior doctors in West Bengal.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)