Interns at College of Medicine and Sagar Dutta Hospital on agitation

KOLKATA: Interns at College and Medicine and Sagar Dutta Hospital (CMSDH) have struck work on relay demanding increase of manpower and deployment of senior doctors to attend critical patients round the clock. The interns are agitating for the past two days. They put their demand before the health department officials on Tuesday and said threatened to intensify their agitation if their demands are not met in the next two days.

“After 2 pm no senior doctor is available in the hospital leaving the responsibility of taking care of even critical patients in the hands of inexperienced interns. If anything goes wrong with the patients we have to bear the brunt,” said an intern of the hospital.

Upgraded into a teaching hospital in 2011, the 500 bed hospital is in severe manpower crunch. The 85 interns who only have temporary registration literally run the hospital once senior doctors and faculty members calls it a day.

“We have requested the health department officials to increase manpower and also set up a police outpost in the hospital. If we don’t not see any development by Thursday, we will go on indefinite strike,” said another intern.