The protesting doctors who are on a sit-in protest 100 metres outside Swasthya Bhawan have written a letter to the President of India Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vice-President of India Jagdeep Dhankhar and Union Health Minister JP Nadda, requesting that they intervene.
The four page letter covered various aspects of the rape-murder incident at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, West Bengal as well as the aftermath. Here are highlights from the letter, as stated in a report by PTI:
- "We humbly place the issues before your esteemed excellency, as the head of state, so that our unfortunate colleague who has been the victim of the most despicable crime shall receive justice, and so that we, the healthcare professionals under the West Bengal Health department, may be able to discharge our duties to the public without fear and apprehension."
- "In the light of these extremely unfortunate events, the head of the institute in question, along with the state police and certain state government officials had allegedly mishandled the entire forensic and legal proceedings with little regard for either the sanctity of the crime scene that was mobbed by several people of infamous repute within the West Bengal medical fraternity, or for the victim's parents."
- In view of these circumstances, the sense of "deep mistrust and fear that we feel towards the authorities remain unallayed so far, and we desperately implore that these noxious elements within the health system be weeded out to assure us of a truly safe workplace."
- "In this turbid atmosphere of fear, distrust and hopelessness", the junior doctors in West Bengal have been "forced" to avoid working within the hospital premises and instead, have taken alternative modes to discharge the duty of providing health care services to citizens
