Government and private hospitals in Assam will not function for four hours on Saturday in protest against rising violence against healthcare professionals and damage to healthcare facilities in the state.

The Assam branch of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) said in a statement on Friday that it had taken “serious note of these happenings” and had, therefore, called for a “four-hour complete cessation of work, barring emergencies, from 8am to 12 noon on Saturday”.

A Guwahati-based member of the IMA branch said besides hospitals, those engaged in private practice, would also go on a cease-work, attending only to emergency cases.

The IMA branch also appealed to all stakeholders, including the government, bureaucracy, general public and the healthcare workers themselves “to find ways and means to create a congenial atmosphere so that proper healthcare delivery can be instituted freely without any fear and impediments”.

The IMA had in August iterated the need for a central law to check violence against health professionals in the wake of the rape and murder of a junior doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Calcutta.

The IMA’s Assam branch cited four specific examples of attacks on healthcare professionals since last week, including the manhandling of doctors and other staff at Majuli and Hailakandi, and the “gross misbehaviour towards a senior doctor with a long track record of social service to the people of Jorhat”.

It also flagged the verbal abuse of a lady junior doctor at Mangaldoi Civil Hospital by a mob of attendants, all of which “has caused great anguish and concern amongst the medical fraternity” in the state.

Three persons have been arrested in the Majuli case after the attendants of the cancer patient attacked doctors and nursing staff and indulged in vandalism after the death of the patient who was in his seventies.The attendants had complained of negligence on the part of the hospital staff.

The IMA branch said it was “impossible to give proper treatment to a patient under constant fear of violence, specially at night, and in interior places where the doctor is often alone and outnumbered by attendants”.

Asked about the effectiveness of the Assam Medical Service Persons and Medical Service Institutions (Prevention of Violence And Damage to Property) Act, 2011, the Guwahati-based doctor said it had not yet yielded the desired results.

The Act prohibits violence against medical professionals and damage to hospital infrastructure.Conviction under the Act carries a jail term up to three years and a fine of Rs 50,000. The Act also provides for the recovery of the cost of damage to property, which will not be less than the purchase price of such property.