Amid the ongoing slugfest between the State Government and doctors, thousands of junior doctors continued a sit-in demonstration outside Swasthya Bhavan, the headquarters of the Health Department, from Tuesday (September 10, 2024). The sit-in have surpassed nearly 48 hours now. The junior doctors started their sit-in from Tuesday (September 10) the day they were advised to join work by 5 p.m. by the Supreme Court. Junior doctors clearly stated that they won’t join work until their five demands are being met.
They have demanded the suspension of top heath officials and police officials who were involved in “evidence tampering” and who tried to deliberately suppress the incident of rape and murder of the junior doctor. The junior doctors demanded an end to “threat culture” practised by ruling party in every medical colleges.
Though the State Health Department wanted to talk with junior doctors on Tuesday (September 10), doctors rejected the proposal as the State Health Department allowed to meet a team of 15 doctors while protesting doctors have said they will only talk with the governments with a team of 30 doctors from 26 medical colleges. The protesting junior doctors reiterated many times from their sit-in that they want to talk to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and demanded their meeting to be live telecast.
Today, West Bengal Chief Secretary Manoj Pant, in a mail addressing to the doctors, said that the meeting can be recorded for transparency, but he rejected doctors’ demand of live telecasting the meeting. Junior doctors from a press conference today (September 12, 2024), have said that they are going to Nabanna, State Secretariat of the Government of West Bengal, to meet the CM, but they have stated they are not going to hold the talk if the team of 30 doctors are not allowed.