West Bengal: How to protect the junior doctors and also to check threat the health care system is facing from them | Arun Srivastava

This is for the first time in its 74 years of existence that the dominion and status of the Supreme Court has been questioned by The West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front saying it has disappointed at how the apex Court was hearing the case. “The Supreme Court has only postponed hearings and reduced the actual length of proceedings”, it said in a written statement.

This public censoring of the apex court will certainly not augur well for the Indian judiciary, it also at some level underscores that the junior doctors are for kangaroo court verdict. The nurse the view that court must abide by their diktats and deliver the verdict which suits them.

Nevertheless, a closer view of this development makes it amply clear that apex court has been primarily responsible for the creation of this embarrassing situation. Apex court took suo-moto cognisance of the rape and murder of the women medic. But before that or even coinciding that incident a number of such heinous crimes had taken place, particularly in the states of UP and Bihar. But apex court did not take notice of those incidents. Obviously CJI D Y Chandrachud made the doctors believe that their case was different from other rape and murder cases and they deserve special treatment from apex court. This is the primary reason for their showing contempt to the apex court and deprecating its orders.

This attitude of the junior doctors is setting the worst kind of precedence. Others would also indulge in challenging its authority. When it is reluctant to take action against these doctors, in that backdrop how it would take action against others for the same nature of crime.

The question that has been making rounds in the social and political is why the doctors are determined to insult the apex court by disobeying its orders? The simple answer is they want the Mamata government to retaliate and take stringent action against them. This is the part of the script they are following. So far Mamata has been quite soft and polite to the agitating doctors. She has offered them huge space. But with medicare system completely cracking down in the state, and every day, on an average four people dying of neglect by the junior doctors, the perseverance of the common people has also started shattering.

Meanwhile the sources maintain that RSS and some Marxist leaders are planning to launch yet another agitation for streamlining treatment delivery system at the government hospitals. While on one hand the junior doctors will not go back to their jobs, a parallel movement would emerge demanding better care at the hospitals. It is also gathered that some of them are contemplating to move Calcutta High Court for issuing directive to Mamata for ensuring proper medical care treatment to the visiting patients.

These people are unwilling to give Mamata a space for manoeuvring and come out of the crisis. They nurse the feeling this is the best opportunity that has come their way during her 13-year rule to dislodge from power. If she takes action against the doctors, it will help them launch a wider agitation against her. If she does not, she could be accused of playing with the lives of poor people.

On September 15 hearing the doctor rape-murder case the Supreme Court had directed the agitating doctors to resume services on Sept 16, the very next day. But the doctors showing utter contempt to the apex court order continued with their agitation. Again on September 30 the Supreme Court directed the doctors to resume their IPD and OPD duties from October 1.

But once again W B Junior Doctors Front (WBJDF) in complete disregard to the SC order announced to resort to indefinite cease work from October 1, the very next day of apex court’s direction. This would also be for the first time that doctors would take out a rally coinciding with the auspicious Mahalaya, the day worship of Goddess Durga starts.

Undeniably the rally will create lots of problems for the worshipper and mar Bengalis’ most revered festival, the symbol of their rich cultural heritage. Durga puja Celebration is a Rs 80,000 crores affair. Already the traders and small business have lost a huge revenue. The middle class Bengali saves its hard earned money throughout the year for this annual celebration. Obviously the question arises; whose interest the doctors are trying to serve though their agitation?

The plea put forward by the doctors has indeed been ridiculous. While iterating some old demands and they have come up with several new ones. One of the demands relate to the Supreme Court and CBI. They seek to know whether the two are serious about their work. Do they intend to deliver justice? Surprisingly their counsels appearing at the hearing on Sept 30 did not put this question to CJI, whether at all he was serious?

Mamata government has undertaken the task to strengthen security at the state hospitals. While participating in the judicial hearing the state has told the SC that work was on progress and it would be completed soon. But the doctors insist that it should be finished within a week. It is astonishing to watch doctors’ counsel resorting to jugglery of words. They were evasive and non-conformist. Their counsel Indira Jaising continued to insist that junior doctors were performing “essential” services, while Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud had sought to know what the term meant. Whether they had resumed IPD and OPD duties.

It is beyond comprehension why their counsels were reluctant to say the truth. In fact the court had to observe;“Learned senior counsel Ms Indira Jaising appearing for the resident doctors and counsel appearing for the… doctors categorically stated that all doctors have resumed duties and shall perform essential services including IPD and OPD”.

Nevertheless much against the spirited defence of the doctors by Jaisingh;“I want it on record that they (junior doctors) are performing emergency and essential services”, the doctors resorted to complete cease work. To justify their action they came with the argument that government has not placed the security in the right place. They also cited the incident of an alleged assault on junior doctors in Friday night at the College of Medicine and Sagore Dutta Hospital in Kamarhati. Some of the attendants of a woman patient, who had died at the hospital due to the utter neglect of the doctors, had allegedly assaulted some hospital staff. The woman’s mother has alleged that the doctors did not treat her and blamed her death on negligence. The dead woman’s husband lodged an FIR on Monday.

A deeper look into the doctor’s agitation makes it clear that doctors have resorted to agitation to protect their own colleagues. A team of five junior doctors were present during postmortem of the medic and have put their consent signature, they are satisfied, on the report. The doctors and CBI have accused the principal and some other persons of destroying evidence by pulling down a wall near the place of occurrence. But it now transpires that the said five junior doctors, one of them is in the steering committee of the Front, has consented to the demolition. Yet another revelation that has surfaced is, the police had objected to the hasty post mortem. But it insistence from a section of the junior doctors that it was carried out. It is also said mother of the medic was present.

It is really despairing that doctors are out to insinuate and disgrace all the institutions. This approach has turned their intentions suspect in the eyes of the common people. Indian Medical Association (National) president R.V. Asokan said; “The Supreme Court is hearing the case now. We need to trust the institution. Nations are made of institutions and the citizens have to have trust in them. We can be angry but at some point, we need to come down to a conflict resolution and what can be a better institution than the Supreme Court?”

If they really feel that CBI was pursuing the investigation in proper way, why did not they instruct their counsels to raise this before the CJI bench. These doctors do not trust the state police, they have no faith in CBI. Strange. They only believe the unseen forces which have been motivating them to create complete lawlessness in the state and sacrifice the lives of the poor people for the benefit of the big and corporate houses. Only a day back, in a statement they said; “We have seen many times before that the CBI has been unable to reach any conclusions, allowing the real culprits of such incidents to go free due to delays in filing charges”.

Some academics and social activists who till yesterday have been sympathetic to their cause, have now accused them of acting at the behest of private health operators and big medical companies. They point out since the CBI is investigating the murder case of medic, the doctors should agitate before the CBI office for quick action rather than paralysing the medical system in the state.

They are holding the entire health administration responsible for the present rot. For them replacing a couple of senior officials will do m magic. But at the same time they refuse to talk about their irresponsible and wild behaviour towards the poor patients. They are keen to serve an elite patient, but form a cold approach towards poor. Strange.

The demand for increased police protection in hospitals is another priority for junior doctors. They are specifically asking for the recruitment of permanent female police personnel to improve safety within medical institutions. Supreme Court must constitute a high-level judicial probe committee consisting of retired judges and advocates to find out the number of attacks on the doctors and study the response of the doctors towards the patients. This will provide an insight into the working abilities of the doctors and to what extent they adhere to basic medical ethics.