The number of police personnel guarding the College of Medicine and Sagore Dutta Hospital in Kamarhati was increased on Sunday, but junior doctors said they were not satisfied with the measures and would continue their cease-work.

The commissioner of Barrackpore City Police told The Telegraph that 15 police personnel have been posted at the hospital from Sunday, over and above the number of personnel already on duty at the hospital.

“A new team of three officers and 12 constables has been posted at the hospital and they will work exclusively to guard the emergency ward. This is in addition to the police force that was already there in the hospital. The outpost at the medical college and hospital already has a deployment of a team of four officers and 20 constables,” Alok Rajoria, the police commissioner of Barrackpore, said.

“This means that at any given time, a team of at least one officer and three constables will be present at the emergency ward. The primary focus would be to control access by visitors and relatives of patients to wards and other places,” Rajoria added.

“The additional police personnel were deployed from Saturday night. They will primarily work in the emergency building and restrict the entry of unnecessary people with a patient. We are expecting that there will be an improvement of the situation with these additional forces,” said Parthapratim Pradhan, the principal of Sagore Dutta hospital.

“We will install 360 additional CCTVs by October 10. Forty CCTVs will be installed by the end of this week. I have also appealed to the junior doctors to rejoin work,” said Pradhan.

The junior doctors, who began a complete cease-work from Friday night after an alleged assault on doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers after the death of a patient, said they were not satisfied with only an increase in police personnel. The complete cease-work at the hospital comes only six days after junior doctors across Bengal resumed partial duties following a 42-day complete cease-work that took a toll on the patient services.

“We have demanded separate on-duty rooms for male and female junior doctors with functioning locks, proper monitoring of CCTVs and increasing the efficiency of security personnel at the hospital,” said a junior doctor.

“In 2019 the number of police in the medical college was increased after the assault on doctors in another medical college, but the increased manpower was withdrawn after some months,” said Monojit Mukherjee, a postgraduate trainee at Sagore Dutta Hospital.

“Besides, nothing has changed outside the wards on Sunday. The security personnel are still very inactive. During the attack on doctors, nurses and healthcare workers on Friday, none of the security personnel reacted in way they should have. The problem is not only with the numbers, it is also with how they respond,” said Mukherjee.

Police officers said that a preliminary assessment of security arrangements at the hospital and an assessment of weak points showed private security guards deployed at the emergency ward — which has the highest number of visitors in a day — were neither competent to handle the huge flow of visitors nor adequately trained to scan and allow people to visit the wards located upstairs.

“The security personnel from a private agency now deployed at the Sagore Dutta Hospital would be assessed for their preparedness and trained accordingly,” said a police officer.

Senior officers said the Private Securities Agencies Regulation Act 2005 requires private security agencies to provide their security guards and supervisors with formal training and skills.

“We have decided to check the skill set of the personnel from the private agency deployed at the hospital and train them adequately. They cannot be mute spectators and have to behave as security personnel,” the officer said. “If their performance do not improve even after the training, we can write to the concerned officials requesting to replace the private agency,” said an officer.

A section of junior doctors alleged on Saturday that some of the private security guards did not respond when the group of people barged inside the female ward and allegedly attacked some nursing staff and junior doctors.