'Want more visible action': Kolkata junior doctors say not ending stir yet

KOLKATA: Striking junior doctors in Bengal indicated late Tuesday night that they would not immediately lift their protest.

Senior advocate Indira Jaising, who made a submission on the junior doctors’ behalf in SC earlier in the day, conveyed to the bench they were ready to resume work if all confidence-building measures agreed upon at the meeting with CM Mamata Banerjee Monday were in place.

She didn’t mention by when they would report for duty at state-run teaching hospitals, saying it was for the general body of the doctors’ association to decide.


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However, after a meeting of the general body that began at 7.30 pm and ended just before midnight, doctors said they wanted more “visible impact on safety and security issues” before they took their final call.

They indicated they would seek a meeting with the chief secretary to discuss govt measures. Some other issues they wanted to discuss were holding of students’ union elections and the setting up of a resident doctors’ association at all medical colleges.

At the marathon general body meeting, while there was no consensus on breaking the stalemate by re-joining emergency duty, a section of doctors felt they should go back to OPD or emergency duty as govt had met most of their demands.

Earlier on Tuesday, after the CM emerged from a meeting with a delegation of the doctors, she had appealed to them to go back to work.