Kolkata: Pictures of patients lying on pavements near many city hospitals in Kolkata are the indicators of the way the state's health care services have been completely throttled due to the "cease work" by the junior doctors in state-run hospitals.
While the doctors fought pressing for their demands regarding security and infrastructure, the hapless family members kept doing the rounds of different hospitals hoping to get some treatment, and fervently urged the state administration for Aquick action to normalise the services.
Patient Bhagya Das's husband has been knocking at the doors of Burdwan Medical College and Hospital since Wednesday for his wife's dialysis. Many thalassemia patients of various age groups seemed helpless as the outpatient departments (OPDs) remained closed.
"Please resume the work and do not make the dialysis patients and pregnant women suffer as they are not at fault. I apologise on behalf of all the patients of Bengal," a patient's kin requested medicos with folded hands at the NRS Medical College and Hospital - the epicentre of the protests. He pleaded with the doctors to empathise with the plight of poor people suffering without treatment.
The family members of a three-month-old ailing child looked heartbroken as they prepared to go back to their Murshidabad home after three futile days in the city when they visited one government hospital to another, only to face disappointment.
On Thursday, a bereaved father was seen holding the body of his deceased infant outside Sagar Dutta Medical College in Kamarhati, in the suburbs of Kolkata, alleging that the child did not get any treatment. Docs decline Mamata’s invite for talks
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday invited the agitating junior doctors for a meeting at the state secretariat, which they declined saying it is a ploy to break their stir.
She convened the meeting to find a solution to the ongoing impasse disrupting normal services at all state-run medical college and hospitals for four days. After the protesting doctors did not turn up on Friday, Banerjee gave them time again at 5 pm on Saturday for the meeting at state secretariat Nabanna, senior physician Sukumar Mukherjee said.
