- Indian hospitals are turning away patients except in emergency cases.
- Patients queue up at hospitals, some unaware of the doctors' strike.
- Heavy police presence outside the hospital where the crime occurred.
Hospitals and clinics across India turned away patients except in emergency cases on Saturday as medical professionals began a 24-hour shutdown in protest against the brutal rape and murder of a doctor in the eastern city of Kolkata.
More than a million doctors were expected to join the strike, paralysing medical services in the world's most populous country. Hospitals said teaching staff at medical schools had been forced to work on an emergency basis.
The strike, which began at 6 a.m., cut off access to elective medical procedures and outpatient consultations, according to a statement by the Indian Medical Association (IMA).
A 31-year-old junior doctor was raped and murdered last week inside a medical college in Kolkata where she worked, sparking nationwide protests among doctors and drawing parallels with the notorious gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi in 2012.
Outside the RG Kar Medical College, where the crime occurred, a heavy police presence was seen on Saturday while the hospital premises were deserted, according to the ANI.
Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, which includes Kolkata, has backed the statewide protests, demanding that the investigation be expedited and that the culprits be punished as severely as possible.
A large number of private clinics and diagnostic centres remained closed in Kolkata on Saturday.
Dr Sandip Saha, a private paediatrician in the city, said: Reuters which will not attend to patients except in cases of emergency.
In Odisha state, patients were queuing up and senior doctors were trying to control the influx, said Dr. Prabhas Ranjan Tripathy, additional medical superintendent of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the city of Bhubaneswar. Reuters.
“The resident doctors are on a full strike and because of that, the pressure is increasing on all members of the teaching staff, which means that the senior doctors are also increasing,” he said.
Patients lined up at hospitals, some unaware that the unrest would prevent them from receiving medical care.
“I spent Rs 500 on the journey to come here. I have paralysis and a burning sensation in my feet, head and other parts of the body,” a patient at SCB Medical College Hospital in Cuttack, Odisha, told a local television channel.
“We didn't know anything about the strike. What can we do? We have to go home.”
Anger over the failure of tough laws to deter a rising tide of violence against women has fuelled protests by doctors and women's groups.
“Women constitute the majority of our profession in this country. Time and again, we have asked for safety for them,” said IMA President RV Asokan. Reuters on Friday.
India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the agency investigating the rape and murder, has summoned several medical students from the RG Kar college to ascertain the circumstances of the crime, according to a police source in Kolkata.
The CBI also questioned the hospital director on Friday, the police source said.
