Aniket Mahato started it. Lahari Sarkar took over from him.

It was not a news conference by the junior doctors to announce their course of action.

Mahato and Sarkar, two prominent faces of the junior doctors’ protests, were working together on a patient in an operation theatre at the trauma care centre at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on Saturday.

The junior doctors, who went on a cease-work following the rape and murder of a 31-year-old postgraduate trainee of RG Kar, had earlier announced they will start providing “essential services” in the medical college hospitals.

Sarkar joined duty around 9am on Saturday. The first patient she examined was a woman who came with an “obstructed hernia”.

“If the surgery in such cases is delayed, it might cut off blood supply to that part of the bowel and it may turn gangrenous. A patient with obstructed hernia can have symptoms like vomiting, abdominal pain and the person may not be able to pass stool,” said Sarkar, a postgraduate trainee in general surgery.

“The team of doctors who examined her realised that she would require surgery. So, she was sent for pre-operative preparations. We took her to the OT around 2.30pm,” she said.

The first 15 minutes were spent on anaesthetising the patient.

Aniket Mahato, a postgraduate trainee of anesthesiology at RG Kar, gave the anaesthesia. The patient was one of three whom Mahato administered anaesthesia to before surgery on Saturday.

“All of us are happy to have come back to work. We always wanted to come back but the situation was not fit for us to resume duties. We now hope the state government will keep its promises and implement measures to increase safety and security as well to root out the threat culture in hospitals,” Mahato said.

The surgery ended around 4.30pm and the woman was then admitted to the general surgery ward.

A senior doctor at the trauma centre said 12 junior doctors were on duty on Saturday. The general emergency of RG Kar is also running from the trauma centre building after the general emergency was ransacked by a mob past midnight on August 14.

As news of the doctors returning to work spread, the number of patients in hospitals went up.

“The number of patients in the emergency started increasing from Friday night. There was a steady stream of patients from Saturday morning. It could be because they knew junior doctors would back on duty,” said a doctor at RG Kar.

Sarkar and her colleagues examined several other patients and two of them needed immediate surgery — an appendectomy and an amputation.
While calling off their cease-work on Thursday night, the junior doctors said they would perform all essential services but not do planned surgeries.

Besides the emergency, the junior doctors also started duties in the critical care units, neo-natal critical care units, the paediatric critical care unit and gynaecology emergency across hospitals.

Debashis Halder, a name known for his fiery speeches slamming institutional corruption and sloth, was also back with his anaesthesia kit at Medical College Kolkata.

“I had to attend a couple of surgeries,” said Halder, a senior resident of anaesthesiology, in the middle of a busy workday.

Parichay Panda, a postgraduate trainee at Ramakrishna Mission Seva Pratishthan Vivekananda Institute of Medical Sciences, was back at the emergency though his name was not on the day’s roster.

“I was not on duty today but still I decided to come and help. I saw a patient who was brought in with severe chest and throat pain. We checked her symptoms and administered medicines and kept her under observation,” Panda said.

He said he had a “different feeling” on Saturday when he examined a patient after the 42-day cease-work. “It felt different to be back in a hospital and checking patients.”

Amrita Bhattacharya, also a postgraduate trainee at Ramakrishna Mission Seva Pratishthan, was a star of the social media ecosystem during the protest.

She, however, could not resume work on Saturday as she was nursing an injury. Bhattacharya needed a fibre cast on her left leg.

“I wanted to join today but I am immobilised at home. I spent the day tracking whatever was happening and was not surprised to see the slogans, paintings and messages being wiped off from the protest site in front of Swasthya Bhavan. But the government must understand that the movement is not dying in any way,” said Bhattacharya.