The strikes and demonstrations that spread around the country started with the brutal murder of a medical trainee at the workplace.
Across India, thousands of doctors and students of the field have gone on strike to demand safer working conditions for healthcare professionals, reports the news channel CNN. The strikes and demonstrations were sparked by the rape and murder of a female trainee doctor at her workplace in Calcutta, in the eastern state of West Bengal.
According to the local police, the woman’s body was found last Friday in the seminar hall of the RG Kari Medical College and Hospital. The bodies had numerous injuries and signs of sexual abuse. One person has been arrested as a suspect.
On Monday, medical associations in several states called on doctors in government hospitals to stop working indefinitely. They demand a quick trial of the murder case and the establishment of a committee to protect healthcare workers.
– About 300,000 doctors from all over the country have joined the demonstrations, and tomorrow we expect more participants, said the general secretary of the medical student union FORDA, Dr. Sarvesh Pandey for CNN.
In Calcutta and New Delhi, doctors carried placards that read: “Save our doctors, save our future.” In the city of Hyderabad, doctors held a candlelight vigil.
75 percent of Indian doctors have faced violence in their work
Many doctors pointed out violence and threats against healthcare professionals. By Indian Medical Association in 2015 research according to 75 percent of Indian doctors had encountered some form of violence in their work.
– The murder of this young female doctor is not the first and it will not be the last, if corrective measures are not taken, the medical association said in a petition sent to the Indian health minister, which was published on Tuesday on the X messaging service. The letter also demanded an investigation into the doctors’ working conditions and an impartial investigation into the murder.
Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee said he was shocked by the death of the trainee doctor at the hospital and supported the protesters’ demand for a quick investigation into the case.
Patriarchal India has struggled for years to reduce violence against women. In 2021, large protests broke out in the country when a female student traveling on a bus was gang-raped and died of her injuries in New Delhi.