New Delhi: Dr R V Asokan , National President, Indian Medical Association (IMA) supporting the indefinite hunger strike by young junior doctors in Kolkata who have been demanding justice for the deceased female doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital along with safer workplaces for healthcare professionals has written an open letter to the medical fraternity. In the letter referring to the present turmoil in the Indian medical system caused by the RG Kar case he said “We are witness to how the sacrifice of the young resident suffocated and raped to a brutal death is haunting the empire. Her death brought out the rot that has set in our medical colleges. Not unlike the Fast in Calcutta by the Father of the Nation in the sunset hours of the Empire the children of Hippocrates are waging a war by silence and suffering. The State has no clue. Doctors have always been soft targets. The injustice inflicted on the medical fraternity has no parallel. From the word go a doctor in India is a slave chained by the Bond system. The departmental toxicity in the medical hierarchy is the direct result of years of underfunding and understaffing.”
The letter further said “Are the residents who are postgraduates to learn clinical medicine the employees of the State to run the medical colleges? Who is responsible for 36 hours duty rosters? Who is accountable for 100 hours a week burden of these children? How many young suicides will open our eyes to the horror that our medical colleges have become?,.706 medical colleges. 72 more in the anvil. 1.5 L MBBS doctors unemployed in any given time loitering in inhumane coaching institutions. Governments cry of shortage yet have no clue how to deploy these fine graduates of medicine. Exploit them. No Government recruits doctors. The Frankenstein called National Health Mission hires these jobless youth ad hoc on peanuts. Angry and frustrated many a young doctor is a daily wage labourer in the Hospital industry. The Governments ran away from Health in 1983. Outsourced to shareholders.”
The letter concludes “The crime in RG Kar is only a symptom. She refused to be a slave. Nothing short of a renaissance could fix the mess. Maybe we doctors were soft to be misunderstood as meek. One RG Kar is more than enough. It is just a wake-up call. Invest in Health. The violence in Hospitals is directly related to decades of criminal underfunding. Industrialisation of Healthcare is not the answer. Redeem Health. Return it to us. We will keep it safe.”
