Thirty-eight doctors of state-run Medinipur Medical College and Hospital in West Bengal are on a hunger strike since last night to protest against the state government’s decision to suspend 12 of their colleagues. Junior doctors started the protest last night.
12 doctors were suspended last week after a woman and a newborn baby died allegedly after being given expired Ringer’s Lactate.
The striking junior doctors claim that the 12 doctors, 6 junior and 6 senior, are trying to divert attention from the main issue that the deaths were caused because of the administration of expired Ringer’s Lactate supplied by Paschal Bang Pharmaceuticals Limited which was blacklisted first by Karnataka government & then by West Bengal government.
The suspended 12 doctors include the medical superintendent-cum-vice principal (MSVP) and the resident medical officer (RMO) of the same hospital.
“We have been repeatedly appealing for revoking the suspension of the 12 doctors. We have communicated with different departments through email on this issue. However, failing to get any reply we ultimately decided to go for the hunger strike. This is an extension of our partial cease-work at the hospital that already started a couple of days back,” a fasting junior doctor said.
A two-tier investigation is already going on in the saline-related death cases, one by the state health department-appointed team of experts & the other by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of West Bengal Police.
Service Doctors’ Forum (SDF), an association of doctors practising in West Bengal, approached the office of Governor C.V. Ananda Bose on Friday & sought his intervention to initiate a judicial probe into the death of the woman and the newborn.
SDF claims that the suspension of the doctors is to divert attention from the main issue that the death was caused because of the administration of expired Ringer’s Lactate supplied by the blacklisted entity Paschim Banga Pharmaceuticals Private Limited.
From the post-mortem report of the victim who died on January 10, it is clear that the death was due to saline or medicine given to her, and in such a situation suspension of 12 doctors is to divert attention from the main issue.
