Chief minister Mamata Banerjee is set to address a doctors’ convention in February where principals, medical superintendents and faculty members at government medical colleges, junior doctors and those from private hospitals will be invited.
About 2,000 doctors are likely to attend the convocation, Sourav Dutta, the chairperson of the state-level grievance redressal committee, which the government had set up at the height of the RG Kar protests to address complaints from doctors, said on Thursday.
The event will be held at Dhono Dhanyo Auditorium in Alipore on February 24, said Dutta.
A statement issued by the committee said doctors from district hospitals, sub-divisional hospitals and state general hospitals will be invited to the convention, called “Chikitsar Opor Naam Seba (The other name of treatment is service)”.
“We approached the chief minister for her consent to host a doctors’ convention. We also requested her to remain present at the convention, which she accepted. The chief minister herself decided that the theme of the meeting would be ‘Chikitsar Opor Naam Seba’,” said Dutta, a head-and-neck surgeon at a private hospital in the city.
“The chief minister will be the chief guest in the programme. We are inviting all doctors to the convention. We will invite the principals and medical superintendents of medical colleges, junior doctors, professors, faculty members, those in the health service and also private doctors.”
Health service doctors are those working in non-medical college hospitals run by the state government.
Asked whether those attending the convention would be able to convey their grievances to the chief minister, Dutta said he was not aware of the “format” to be adopted for the event.
“It will not be possible for all 2,000 doctors to interact with the chief minister. The committee will find ways to ensure that the grievances aired by the doctors reach her.”
“We will visit the medical colleges and speak to the doctors. We will inform the chief minister about the feedback.”
Seated beside him were three more members of the committee: Yogiraj Ray, the head of the infectious disease department at a government medical college; Debjani Bandopadhyay, an official in the health department; and Sunetra Kaviraj Roy, a professor of community medicine at a government medical college.
The committee was set up in October at the peak of the protests over the rape and murder of a doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9. The committee was supposed to address the complaints and grievances of doctors.
Abhishek Banerjee, the Diamond Harbour MP and the all-India general secretary of the Trinamool Congress, addressed a doctors’ summit in Diamond Harbour in November. Over 1,000 doctors had attended the meeting.
A professor at a medical college in Calcutta told The Telegraph that it seemed the chief minister wanted to reach out to doctors who took to the streets after the rape and
murder.
“She possibly wants to bridge the gap that may have developed between doctors and the state government after the RG Kar protests,” said the professor, who spoke on condition of anonymity.