Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has invited to talks the agitating junior doctors who are expected to finalise their response on Saturday.

If the junior doctors accept the invitation to “three to four representatives”, the talks are expected to take place at 5pm at Nabanna, the state secretariat.

The junior doctors have been on strike since Tuesday morning after an assault following the death of a patient at NRS Medical College and Hospital. Among their key demands are an apology from the chief minister for her outburst at SSKM Hospital on Thursday afternoon and foolproof security.

The protesting junior doctors at NRS will meet on Saturday morning and consult their peers at all the state-run medical colleges in Bengal on whether they should go to Nabanna to meet the chief minister.

Till late Friday night, there were two opinions: one favouring acceptance of the invitation and the other keen on the chief minister visiting NRS.

The talks invite from the chief minister had come after she met a group of five veteran doctors on Friday evening at Nabanna. (See chart)

The talks offer was conveyed to the junior doctors at NRS by the director of medical education (DME), Pradip Mitra, who reached the medical college and hospital on Friday evening.

“The chief minister wanted to hold talks with the junior doctors on Friday night itself but they needed time to decide whether to go and whom to send. So the meeting could not be held today. We sought a time from the chief minister and she told us we can meet again at 5pm tomorrow,” Sukumar Mukherjee, one of the five doctors who met Mamata, said while leaving Nabanna.

Asked whether the junior doctors would turn up for the meeting on Saturday, Mukherjee said: “I don’t know, but we will come.”

The fast-paced developments capped a day that saw over 400 senior doctors sending in mass resignation letters. The senior doctors who resigned included at least 175 from SSKM Hospital in Calcutta and 150 from medical colleges in north Bengal.

Solidarity protests mushroomed in several cities in the country, prompting Union health minister Harsh Vardhan to write to Mamata and appeal to her to personally intervene and resolve the impasse.

At least 175 senior doctors resigned en masse from SSKM Hospital on Friday afternoon. As hundreds of protesting junior doctors stood behind her, Arpita Ray Chaudhury, professor of nephrology, Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research (IPGMER), read out a statement on behalf of the senior doctors. The statement said: “We know that the people are the worst sufferers of this impasse and solidarity with the people has to be established as early as possible. Immediate stern steps have to be taken against all those involved in violence against doctors in an exemplary manner. We feel the authority is hiding its utter deficiencies in the healthcare system by diverting people’s grievances to the serving doctors. We are not enemies of the people. “In the absence of any positive development in the last 24 hours from the administration, we, the following doctors, would like to offer our resignations from our service en masse.” Picture by Gautam Bose

Around the time the five doctors were meeting Mamata, governor Keshari Nath Tripathi, who called on injured junior doctor Paribaha Mukhopadhyay, revealed that he had tried to call Mamata to Raj Bhavan for a meeting but there had been no response till then.

The five veteran doctors, while leaving Nabanna, said they had met the chief minister so that the impasse could end.

“Our job is to ensure that both sides come to the table and hold discussions…. We should avoid any provocative comments at this moment to ensure that the situation does not get more critical,” Abhijit Chowdhury said.

On the ground, the situation was turning grim because of the ongoing strike. Although emergency services resumed in some medical colleges, not many patients could be treated at the facility in NRS because of a shortage of doctors.

Senior doctors informed health officials that emergency services cannot be run for long without the help of junior doctors.

Before the talks invitation was conveyed to the junior doctors, Mamata had sought to explain her stand at a Trinamul Congress programme at Kanchrapara.

Referring to her SSKM visit on Thursday, Mamata said: “Who are these people?… Outsiders, not insiders. Because I said that yesterday, many of you made fun of me, said a lot of things in the newspapers asking why I had said ‘outsiders’.”

Mamata named a youngster seen at NRS and said he had been working in another hospital for 10 years.

“How did he become a junior doctor now? What, my friends?”

The chief minister added: “I said there are many outsiders, not that everyone is an outsider. Insiders are insiders, but outsiders were there. I just backed up my facts with logic. I gave you a name, I told you where he works and how many years he has been working… I told you.”