India’s highest court has ordered protesting doctors who have been on strike as they demand better working conditions after the rape and murder of a trainee doctor, to return to work by 5 p.m. Tuesday or face “adverse action.”
Hundreds of doctors across India have remained off work and at one point more than a million were expected to participate in some form of a strike following the news of the Kolkata murder on Aug. 9. Some have since returned to work. Hundreds of thousands of women also participated in a protest march. The West Bengal Junior Doctor’s Front, which is spearheading the strike effort in the region, said in an Instagram post that it is demanding all perpetrators of the crime are identified and that an investigation is held to look into possible tampering of evidence. The group has also demanded that the Kolkata police commissioner resigns, and democratic elections are held for all decision-making committees within medical colleges. Sandip Ghosh resigned as principal of the medical college where the crime took place on Aug. 12 and was reportedly suspended by the West Bengal health department in early September relating to a separate ongoing investigation into financial misconduct.
The victim was a 31-year-old woman training to be a doctor at RG Kar Medical College, a government-run hospital. She reportedly fell asleep in a seminar room after a 36-hour shift, and her severely injured body was discovered by colleagues the morning of Aug. 9. A hospital volunteer was arrested on Aug. 10 and a Kolkata court rejected his request for bail on Sep. 7, according to The Hindu. India’s Central Bureau of Investigation is expected to file an updated status report into the incident and possible mishandling of evidence by the West Bengal government on Sept. 17.
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The strikes that followed have taken a toll on the country’s healthcare system, particularly in the state of West Bengal, where the murder took place and strikes are ongoing. Because junior doctors have been striking, senior doctors have been forced to fill in, according to The Economic Times. Kapil Sibal, the lawyer representing the state of West Bengal before the Supreme Court, claimed that at least 23 patients have died as a result of the doctors’ strike.
“We know what is happening on the ground, but doctors must now come back to work. They cannot say senior doctors are working, so we will not work.” Chief Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud said in court, according to India Today. “If doctors do not resume work, then we cannot stop the government from taking disciplinary action.”
The doctors have claimed that they have taken necessary precautions to prevent harm from coming to patients due to the strikes, including creating a new telemedicine service that launched Aug. 31, which they say helps relieve the burden for patients, according to the West Bengal Junior Doctors Front 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 the doctors’ return to work as opposed to justice for the victim. She said in a Whatsapp message that, while the court focused on the strike, she believed there had been little discussion in the Sept. 9 hearing about “30 days of injustice,” which she said was the reason so many doctors had taken to the streets.
“We Demand Justice. We want fair punishment for all of those whose heart are as polluted as the mind [sic],” the West Bengal Junior Doctors Front said in a post on Instagram.
As of now, Saha says she and her fellow doctors are unlikely to work tomorrow, despite the Supreme Court’s orders. The West Bengal Junior Doctor’s Front has yet to officially react to the Supreme Court’s news.
It is unclear at this stage what the implications for disobeying the Supreme Court’s order will be. “If there is continuous abstaining from work then disciplinary action can be taken against [the doctors] and they cannot be oblivious to the general concerns of the community whom they are intended to serve,” Chief Justice Chandrachud said in court, according to the Hindustan Times.
