Kolkata, Amid protests by doctors in several districts of West Bengal, four junior doctors were injured when stones were pelted at Burdwan Medical College and Hospital on Wednesday, an official said.
“The doctors were peacefully holding a dharna when some hooligans pelted stones from outside around 11 a.m. One intern Mayank Agarwal, 22, was seriously hurt on the forehead, while three others received minor injuries,” Amitava Saha, Deputy Superintendent of the hospital, told IANS.
He said the outpatient departments (OPDs) was shut as the junior doctors were protesting against an attack on interns at the NRS Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, but the emergency services also got disrupted after the stone pelting.
“The emergency services were kept open. Admitted patients are being treated. But as the situation went out of control, outsiders are not being allowed anymore,” Saha said.
The police brought the situation under control and all senior officers are at the spot as the doctors are continuing their sit-in, he added.
Similar scenes of cease-work were witnessed in districts such as Bankura, Birbhum and Coochbehar.
In Kolkata, family members of patients at the state-run SSKM Hospital started a simultaneous protest by occupying the streets outside and blocking traffic on the AJC Bose Road crossing demanding treatment of their ailing kin.
Services at some private hospitals were also disrupted as they showed solidarity with the doctors.
“We want some sort of assurance because whenever any incident occurs, the security and administrative staff becomes untraceable. It is us (junior doctors) who are beaten up or manhandled,” said one of the protesting doctors at NRS Hospital.
Protests erupted at the state-run NRS Hospital on Tuesday morning bringing the regular services to a standstill, after a junior doctor was allegedly beaten up by the relatives of a 75-year-old patient who died there late on Monday night.
The family members of the deceased patient alleged medical negligence. The intern named Paribaha Mukherjee sustained a serious skull injury in the attack and has been admitted in the intensive care unit of the Institute of Neurosciences in Kolkata’s Park Circus area. His condition is reportedly stable.
