Nationwide doctors' strike today; IMA demands airport model security protocol in hospitals

New Delhi: The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has called for a nationwide medical shutdown on Saturday to protest over the brutal rape and murder of a trainee doctor at Kolkata's RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. Operation of non-emergency services including Out Patient Department in government as well as private hospitals will be affected across India as the doctors went on a 24-hour strike from 6 am. 

All essential services will be maintained and casualties will be manned, the IMA said in a statement.The withdrawal is across all the sectors wherever modern medicine doctors are providing service, the doctors' body said. The routine OPDs will not function and elective surgeries will not be conducted. 

Medics in various parts of the country including West Bengal, Delhi, Kerala and Telangana have been protesting over the rape and murder of the young doctor for more than a week. The protesters demanded that the central government should implement Central Protection Act for the safety of the doctors in hospitals.

The IMA demanded a thorough overhaul of the working and living conditions of resident doctors, including  the 36-hour duty shift that the victim was in and the lack of safe spaces to take a rest. It has also demanded that hospitals be declared safe zones with the first step being mandatory security entitlements.

"The security protocols of all hospitals should be no less than (that of) an airport. Declaring the hospitals as safe zones with mandatory security entitlements is the first step. CCTVs, deployment of security personnel and the protocols can follow," the IMA said in statement.

The doctors' body also called for meticulous and professional investigation of the crime in a specific time-frame and rendering of justice besides identifying those involved in the vandalism of the hospital premises and awarding exemplary punishment. It also sought an appropriate and dignified compensation to the bereaved family commensurate with the cruelty inflicted.

"The RG Kar incident has brought to the fore two dimensions of violence in the hospital: 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. 

 "The crime and the vandalism have shocked the conscience of the nation. Today, both the medical fraternity and the nation are victims," the statement said.