Kolkata rape-murder case: IMA President elaborates their 4 demands ahead of nationwide strike

The Indian Medical Association (IMA), the country’s largest medical association, is scheduled to halt all major hospital services across India as part of a 24-hour nationwide strike starting the morning of Saturday, August 17.

This comes as the tragic rape and murder of the female trainee doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital has been receiving nationwide outrage from the medical community as well as the general public. In a press release issued by the medical association today, August 16, the medical association labelled the horrific incident as: “A crime of barbaric scale due to the lack of safe spaces for women and the hooliganism that is unleashed due to lack of an organised security protocol.”

Along with IMA, Resident Doctors Associations (RDAs) from several states and medical colleges have also announced protests and suspension of all non-essential and elective hospital services.

As the country witnessed a widespread outrage against the horrific crime, especially from the medical fraternity, IMA’s strike on August 17 is expected to be one of the largest in the last few years, including most private and public hospitals — irrespective of the sector and place of work, as the association informed in its release.

In our conversation with Dr Sharad Kumar Agarwal, National President of the association, we try to understand what the doctors across India seek now.

IMA has announced a 24-hour nationwide strike tomorrow, August 17. Can you give us more information about it?

In Kolkata, a young PGT doctor was subjected to brutality. She was raped and murdered and in a week, even the number of culprits have not been identified. Right in the beginning, IMA had given a 48-hour ultimatum to the authorities urging them to identify and take immediate action against the people who are behind this. That did not happen.

Now, we have called for a one-day strike starting from August 17, 6 am till August 18, 6 am. All services except emergency services will be halted nationwide.

Given the recurring issue of violence against healthcare professionals, highlighted once again by this tragic crime, what do you believe would be an effective long-term solution to address and prevent such cases?

This is the agony of the medical community in our country. This is not a single incident. Every day, somewhere a doctor faces violence and we have been opposing it continuously. We are demanding a central act for the protection of doctors, ‘Prevention of Violence Against Healthcare Professionals’.

We are also questioning why the government can not extend the ordinance that it had made during the COVID-19 pandemic (Epidemic Diseases Bill, 2020) which ensured stricter punishments for attacks against health workers.

This incident has exposed several deficiencies in the infrastructure and functioning of medical colleges and hospitals. What measures can individual medical colleges and administrations take to ensure the safety of medical students and doctors?

The National Medical Commission (NMC) is the regulatory body and it has the authority to make such guidelines for medical colleges. Our demand is that the NMC should be more active in ensuring safety measures in all medical colleges across India.

Do colleges have adequate CCTV cameras on campus and separate duty rooms for male and female doctors? Are there separate toilets for each gender? Is there sufficient security personnel on-site? These factors should be critical criteria for either granting or revoking a medical college’s licence.

What additional demands does the association hope to raise through this nationwide strike? What is the future plan for IMA?

Another demand is that 48-hour duty hours should be regularised for doctors and it should be ensured that they have proper and appropriate working conditions in all medical colleges and hospitals. This needs to be revisited.

Last, but not the least, the hooligans who have done this brutality against the young doctor in Kolkata, need to be identified immediately and subjected to a fast-track trial. The highest form of punishment should be ensured so that it sets an example for others who even think of indulging in these crimes.

We do not want to indulge in politics, we only want these four demands to be ensured.

If, after our strike, no action is taken on our demands, we will again regroup and discuss the next action plan.