Medical professionals hold up posters during a nationwide strike in India by doctors to condemn the rape and murder of a young Kolkata medic. Credit – IDREES MOHAMMED—AFP/Getty Images
IIndia’s Supreme Court has ordered the protesting doctors who went on strike demanding better working conditions after the rape and murder of a doctor in trainingto return to work no later than Tuesday at 5 p.m., otherwise they risk an ‘adverse measure’.
Hundreds doctors remained unemployed throughout India and at one point there were more than a million were expected to take part in some form of strike following the news of the killing in Kolkata on August 9. Some have since returned to work. Hundreds of thousands of women also took part in a protest march. The West Bengal Junior Doctor’s Front, which is leading the strike efforts in the region, said in an Instagram post that it demands that all perpetrators of the crime be identified and that an investigation be conducted into possible tampering of evidence. The group has also demanded that the Kolkata police chief resign and that democratic elections be held for all decision-making committees in medical colleges. Sandip Ghosh resigned as director of the medical faculty where the August 12 crime took place and reportedly suspended by the West Bengal Health Department in early September in connection with a separate ongoing investigation into financial misconduct.
The victim was a 31-year-old woman who was training to be a doctor at the RG Kar Medical College, a government-run hospital. She reportedly fell asleep in a seminar room after a 36-hour shift, and her grievously injured body was discovered by colleagues on the morning of August 9. A volunteer from the hospital was arrested on August 10, and a Kolkata court rejected his bail plea on September 7, according to The HinduIndia’s Central Bureau of Investigation is expected to file a report an updated status report into the incident and the possible mishandling of evidence by the West Bengal government on September 17.
Read more: Women protest on India’s Independence Day after the murder of a doctor
The strikes that followed have taken their toll on the country’s healthcare system, particularly in the state of West Bengal, where the murder took place and the strikes are still ongoing. With junior doctors on strike, senior doctors have been forced to step in, according to The economic timesKapil Sibal, the lawyer representing the state of West Bengal in the Supreme Court, claimed that at least 23 patients died as a result of the doctors’ strike.
“We know what is happening on the ground but doctors have to go back to work now. They cannot say senior doctors are working so we will not work,” Chief Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud said in the court, according to India Today“If doctors do not resume their work, we cannot prevent the government from taking disciplinary measures.”
The doctors have claimed that they have taken necessary precautions to prevent patients from being harmed by the strikes, including setting up a new telemedicine service launched on August 31, which they say will ease the burden on patients, the West Bengal Junior Doctors Front said Instagram page.
Dr. Arimpa Saha, a junior doctor on strike at Calcutta National Medical College, told TIME that she was disheartened by the court’s focus on getting the doctors back to work rather than justice for the victim. She said in a WhatsApp message that while the court focused on the strike, she believed there was little discussion in the Sept. 9 hearing about “30 days of injustice,” which she believed was the reason so many doctors had taken to the streets.
“We demand justice. We want fair punishment for all those whose hearts are as polluted as their minds (sic),” the West Bengal Junior Doctors Front said in a post on Instagram.
Saha says it is unlikely that she and her fellow doctors will work tomorrow despite the Supreme Court orders. The West Bengal Junior Doctors Front has not yet officially reacted to the Supreme Court’s news.
It is unclear at this stage what the implications of ignoring the Supreme Court order will be. “If there is continued deprivation of work, then disciplinary action can be taken against (the doctors) and they cannot be blind to the general concerns of the community they are meant to serve,” Chief Justice Chandrachud said in the bench, according to the Hindustan Times.
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