3,000 city docs march to Plaza

Amarjot Kaur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 17

Gathered at the PGI’s Bhargava Auditorium on a stormy Monday evening, more than 3,000 city doctors marched till the Sector 17 Plaza and registered their protest against the recent incident of violence reported at NRS Medical College in Kolkata.

Pinning a black piece of cloth to the front pocket of their white coats, the medical fraternity of the city swarmed the Plaza from various hospitals and medical associations, including the Indian Medical Association and the Specialist Doctor Association.

The president of the PGI Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), Dr Uttam Thakur, said the protest marked their solidarity with the medical fraternity’s nationwide agitation against the violent attack on junior doctors Paribaha Mukhopadhyay and Yash Tekwani in West Bengal.

Members of the ARD had assembled at the auditorium since 8 am, bringing the OPD services of the PGI to a staggering halt. The emergency services were, however, provided to critically ill patients. The ARD had informed the office of PGI Director about their protest and strike, stating that emergency and critical-care areas like ICUs would be exempted from the strike. In the wake of the impending protest, the PGI Director had called a meeting of the hospital’s department heads on Sunday evening to discuss the issue and prepare a contingency plan.

While most doctors from the GMCH, Sector 32, had already joined the doctors at the PGI in the auditorium to stage a silent protest for over nine hours, more doctors joined the white-coat brigade en route Sector 17 at the traffic lights of the GMSH, Sector 16.

The protesting doctors held banners and raised slogans as they marched from the PGI to Matka Chowk. A battery of over 50 cops and three PCR vehicles accompanied them as they manoeuvred their way through the busy after-office traffic. “I feel, this is the right time to march through the city, so that people know it’s not fair to beat up doctors. We save people’s lives and beating is not what we deserve,” said one of the doctors from a private hospital.

The IMA president, Dr Rajesh Dhir, who also gave a speech at the Plaza, shared, “Such incidents threaten the dignity of our profession and we are forced to take to the roads to show our agitation against such episodes.” The doctors carried out a candlelight march at the Sector 17 Plaza and echoed slogans of “Save the Doctors”, “We Want Justice”, and “Long Live Doctors’ Unity” during the culmination of the protest.

Dr Thakur said, “We are on an indefinite strike, at least until we hear from our colleagues in Kolkata. To pay allegiance to the Hippocratic Oath, we have not called off the emergency services. We are eager to get back to work too, as patients are always our priority, but we will be able to tell about the end of the strike only once we get a cue from the doctors in West Bengal.”