For the last 10 days, Calcuttans had got used to seeing truckloads of food arriving at the sit-in protest by junior doctors outside Swasthya Bhavan.

Early on Friday, the truckloads of food, tarpaulins, water bottles and medicines were going out from the same site.

They were now headed to the flood-ravaged villages of Bengal.

A team of 26 junior doctors from RG Kar Medical College and Hospital and Bankura Sammilani Medical College went to East Midnapore’s Panskura on Friday to distribute relief material and essential medicines. The team stopped in three places —Joykrishnapur, Garh Purushottampur and Pratappur.

“We carried about 700 bottles of drinking water of 5 litres, 2 litres and 1 litre capacity. There were biscuits, puffed rice, cakes, sanitary pads, fresh vegetables, tarpaulins and garments,” said Riya Bera, a postgraduate trainee of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

“We stressed on carrying drinking water bottles because the flood has contaminated the clean water sources and there is a demand for clean drinking water,” said Bera.

Paracetamol, ORS sachets and multi-vitamin tablets were distributed among the marooned residents.

The team did not go to conduct any medical camps but went to Panskura to assess the situation and get an idea of what kind of medical assistance the people need.

“We will conduct a base medical camp at Keshpur on Saturday. From there, we have plans to spread out to nearby places and conduct two more medical camps. The location will be decided by representatives of Midnapore Medical College and Hospital,” said Bera.

This newspaper reported on Friday that Panskura railway station was under water and completely inaccessible, a condition worse than the inundation in 1978 according to old-timers.

The nearly 10sqkm area surrounding Panskura railway station, which connects NH6 and the Ghatal state highway on the western side and road links to Tamluk, Contai and Haldia on the eastern side, has been submerged under seven feet of water.

“A few teams went to flood-ravaged places on Friday. From Saturday, teams from the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front will go to all flood-hit places. We will conduct medical camps and Abhaya clinics in these places,” Debashis Halder, a junior doctor of Medical College Kolkata after the junior doctors marched from Swasthya Bhavan to the CBI office at the CGO Complex in Salt Lake.

The team of doctors left RG Kar at 9.30am and reached Panskura around 1.30pm. “It took at least an hour more to reach because the highway was closed and we had to take a detour,” said a juniordoctor.

During a visit to flood-hit Udaynarayanpur on Thursday, chief minister Mamata Banerjee had appealed to the “good sense” of doctors while talking about the cease-work by the junior medics.

“I want to do medical camps. Doctors have not returned to work. I have tried as much as I could. I hope good sense will prevail because people are hit by the floods. The most important job for us now is to save lives. This is not the time to do politics,” Mamata said.

Hours later, the junior doctors announced they were lifting their sit-in outside Swasthya Bhavan and will resume essential service duty from Saturday.