Two suicides by the Post Graduate students of Delhi’s premier Maulana Azad Medical College in quick succession and two apologies, one by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and another by the head of Gynecology department of Patna-based Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS), Dr Neeru Goel, hit the headlines recently.
While the Trinamool Congress supremo sought forgiveness from the people of the state on September 12 and even offered to step down when junior doctors refused to meet her, the shocking incident involving Dr Neeru Goel gave an idea of the rot within our health set up.
Then came the news of the suicide on September 15. Dr Navdeep Singh, whose body was found hanging in his room, was the NEET topper of 2017. This was the second case of suicide in MAMC since August 27 last.
IGIMS Incident
An infuriated Lady Dr Goel last week asked two female Post Graduate students to make sit up (uthak-baithak) before the patient because they, according to the local media reports, did not check up her blood pressure as instructed. In this era where parents protest physical punishment to young children even in school, here two MBBS pass out doctors doing Post Graduate course had to undergo such humiliation. It was only later when these two resident doctors (as PG students are called) raised the issue with the higher authorities that Dr Goel on September 7 apologized.
This is not an isolated incident. Junior and resident doctors, most of them in late 20s and early 30s and even married with children, had to undergo worst form of mental and physical torture across many
medical college and hospitals in India.
According to the National Medical Commission data revealed in February 2024, 122 MBBS and PG students had committed suicide in the last five years, while 1,270 dropped out from the course midway. Sixty four of them who took their lives were MBBS students while 58 of Post Graduate. In the same way 153 MBBS while 1,117 PG students had left the course without completing it. The percentage of PG students who killed themselves or left in the middle of the career is much higher as the total number of MBBS students is many times more.
Ignoring Genuine Concern
The tragedy is that the young medicos on warpath in West Bengal—or anywhere else– for the last 40 daysare not raising their genuine concern. Here again the senior doctors, who are no less responsible for their sorry plight, are misguiding the juniors to save their own skin. By refusing to meet Mamata
Banerjee for the third consecutive day on September 12 and again on September 14 they harmed their own cause. By making live screening an issue they lost a lot of support of the common masses. The junior doctors should have exposed their exploitation by the full-fledged doctors of different health hubs.
They rather insisted only on action against police and health department officials alleged to be responsible for August 9 incident. Mamata finally agreed to these demands on September 16 night.
The IGIMS incident revealed that the senior doctors have not learnt anything from the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital rape-cum-murder of a woman resident doctor. Once again, what is overlooked is that the victim in that case slept in the seminar roo of the hospital only because she was on duty for 36 long hours. The doctor-principal of the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital Dr Sandeep Ghosh was responsible for it. The rape-cum-murder perhaps would not have taken place had she been allowed to go to her hostel or home.
Ironically, the head of the department of Gynecology in IGIMS, a prestigious institutes of eastern India, is a woman and those she punished too were female.
This mistreatment of junior and resident doctors is not only confined to R G Kar Hospital in Kolkata and IGIMS in Patna but has become a common practice. Though the judiciary too gave much emphasis on security, what was overlooked was the root cause. Do the full-fledged doctors, especially lady doctors, ever work for 36 long hours and sleep in the seminar room of the hospital?
Challenging Task
A month after intervening on behalf of doctors the Supreme Court has got an idea of how challenging a task it is to handle agitation in West Bengal. They refused to accept its directive to resume duty by 5:00 PM on September 10. The apex court made it amply clear that the state government would then be free to take any action against them. It is now on the side of the same Mamata government. Is it that the judicial activism shown in the initial days emboldened the doctors.
The doctors’ agitation—not just this one—is not always peaceful as it is being made out. There are instances of doctors and other para medic staff mistreating and roughing up patients during the strike, even removing them from Operation Theatres. In many cases the process of saline and blood transfusion to
patients are abruptly disrupted when junior doctors go on wild cat strike.
It would be wrong only to blame relatives and attendants of patients for vandalism. Young doctors too indulge in it. The media turned a blind eye to such vandalism by agitating doctors in many parts of India during the high time of stir last month.
This correspondent has during his reporting days several years back highlighted one such incident. A final year MBBS pass out met with motor-cycle accident. He was rushed to the same medical college and hospital where he was the student in a critical condition.
His friends went on warpath creating ruckus in the hospital alleging that the senior doctors were not available in emergency duty when he was brought in. They were of the view that his life would have been saved had proper and timely treatment provided.
The authorities found it difficult to handle the situation as those who created the ugly scene were their own students and junior doctors and not the outsiders. What will the CISF jawans do in such a situation?
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