Bengal’s chief secretary Manoj Pant on Sunday evening wrote to several associations of senior doctors inviting them to a meeting at Swasthya Bhavan at 12.30pm on Monday.
In a separate email in the evening, the chief secretary also appealed to the Joint Platform of Doctors, an umbrella body of associations of doctors, to withdraw their call for a carnival of protest (Droher Carnival) on Rani Rashmoni Avenue, at Esplanade, at 4pm on Tuesday.
The Durga Puja carnival, organised by the state government, has been scheduled for Tuesday.
The first email was in reply to the one that the doctors’ associations had sent Pant on October 9.
“We had mentioned in our email that along with the demands of the junior doctors, we had our own demands, which included dissolution of the West Bengal Medical Council,” said ManasGomta, a member of the Association of Health Service Doctors.
“We will discuss among ourselves whether to attend the meeting on Monday or not.”
Pant’s email did not mention any agenda for the meeting. “You are kindly requested to attend a meeting with the undersigned at 12.30pm on 14.10.2024 at Swasthya Bhavan,” the email read.
Each association has been requested to send the names of two members who will attend the meeting.
Regarding the chief secretary’s appeal to withdraw the call for Droher Carnival, the doctors said they were yet to decide.
“We have received the email. We are discussing among ourselves what to do,” said Punyabrata Guna, a joint convener of the Joint Platform of Doctors.
The junior doctors said they were looking forward to Tuesday’s hearing at the Supreme Court of the RG Kar rape-and-murder case to know more details of the CBI investigation, including the motive of the crime.
The CBI has filed its first chargesheet in the case at a Sealdah court and said the probe so far has shown that the victim — a 31-year-old postgraduate trainee doctor — was raped and murdered by one person.
“So many days have passed since the crime, but we are yet to know the motive. We are hoping the next Supreme Court hearing will shed some light on the probe and the motive,” said Asfakulla Naiya, a junior doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.
Urmimala Bhattacharjee, another junior doctor, said the Junior Doctors’ Front would focus on the hearings at the Sealdah court.
“The Supreme Court is not a trial court. The real details of the probe and what the CBI is doing will emerge at the Sealdah court,” she said.
The junior doctors also said that as told by their counsel during the last hearing at the Supreme Court on September 30, they have resumed duty.
During the last hearing, the counsel for the junior doctors had told the Supreme Court that the medics were providing services in both OPDs and wards.
The state government’s counsel had said the junior doctors had only resumed emergency services.
Eight junior doctors are on a fast till death at Esplanade and one more at North Bengal Medical College and Hospital.
Three fasting junior doctors had to be taken to hospital after their condition turned critical.
Late on Saturday, Anustup Mukherjee, one of the fasting doctors, was admitted to the critical care unit of Medical College Kolkata. His condition has since improved, officials at the hospital said.
The eight doctors who are still on hunger strike at Esplanade were “physically weak but hemodynamically stable”, said a junior doctor.
A section of senior doctors, all former students of RG Kar Medical College, took part in a token hunger strike on the campus on Sunday, in solidarity with the junior doctors on hunger strike at Esplanade and North Bengal Medical College and Hospital.
