“What is our fault…”, patients continue to suffer due to ongoing cease work by Junior Doctors at Kolkata Govt Hospitals

Rekha Gorai, 63, was patiently waiting, seated on a stretcher outside the main building of the state run SSKM hospital in Kolkata. The wait was for the vehicle enroute from Nadia district, which will ferry her back to her hometown. This was after she failed to get admitted to the hospital, even after repeated pleading with the hospital authorities over the past 4 days.

“We can’t afford a private ambulance, it is asking for Rs 9000/- for a distance of merely 120kms. The government free ambulance service is there but we are not eligible since we were never admitted at the hospital. The government ambulance service is only for patients admitted here. We are poor people and thus I have called someone I know from our hometown. We will take her back”, said Sankar Gorai, the septuagenarian husband of Rekha. The senior citizen woman had developed a stomach ulcer, and it is in an advanced stage. Initially admitted to a cancer hospital in the city, but later she was referred to SSKM from there. The husband, who could barely manage himself, rushed to show all the documents, in an effort to prove how genuine their cry for admission was.

Since last Monday and ever since the referral, the couple had been spending their days out in open inside the hospital compound and at nights going back to a rented house nearby, only to come back the next morning in hope to manage an admission. However, much like Monday, they have only been turned away on every single day that followed; their struggles have ended in vain. Finally on Thursday a doctor attended to her but in the outdoor section. Rekha was administered one test and thereafter told to go back, return in 15 days or if there’s an emergency due to deterioration in condition and warranted admission. “We have no money left. I have been paying Rs 600 per night for the stay near to the hospital. I love my wife but I can’t afford her treatment at a private hospital. I simply ask the doctors, what is our fault”, Sankar Gorai broke down but then immediately collected himself and went to attend his wife. Rekha was looking for the blue plastic tub, her mobile basin. Because of the ulcer, she has difficulty digesting food, at times the water too comes out almost immediately after consuming. Incidentally, she was lying on the stretcher right next to the make shift camp where junior doctors were holding their protest until it shifted to Swasthya Bhawan on August 10. The scaffold has stayed inside SSKM, so have the posters reading “we want justice”. Rekha, quietly, kept staring at the posters.

But she isn’the only one who is suffering due to the ongoing cease work of junior doctors at government run medical colleges and hospitals. The cease work has entered into day forty-two since the brutal rape and murder of the 31 year old RG Kar medical student on August 9. The junior doctors, who have been demanding a more secure and conducive environment at the workplace, had a meeting with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee last Monday, followed by another round of talks with the chief secretary and other government officials on Wednesday. While their demands including removal of Vineet Goyal from the post of Kolkata Police Commissioner along with few other Health officials were met by the state, yet the cease work has continued. “I have done whatever was possible from my side. I can only appeal the doctors to return to work”, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Thursday while touring through the flood affected districts in the state.

From a distance the sound of a chaos filled the air inside SSKM hospital. Next to the Emergency building of the hospital, an aggrieved patient party was negotiating hard with the policemen at the gate. He had brought his sister Maya Sardar, 50, for admission after she met with a deadly accident in Basanti, South 24 Paraganas. It took them over two hours to reach the hospital but then another two hours had passed by in finding a doctor who would tend to her needs. Next to the ambulance, Maya was helplessly lying on the stretcher with her right leg wrapped in bandage. Her husband stood next to her while the brother was doing all the running around. “From one department to another, I have been shuttling between all the floors- from first to the fourth but I couldn’t find a single doctor. There was one senior doctor but he too was pressed. He gave one medicine and told us to leave. My sister has been withering in pain. If something happens to my patient will I go and start protesting against the doctors?”, asked Madhu Sardar as they rushed the stretcher inside the ambulance and exited the hospital in search for another emergency ward at another hospital, hoping they wouldn’t be turned away from there.

While the Emergency departments have been operational, as argued by the junior doctors in their defence when accused of the medical paralysis, but then it is the senior doctors who have stretched themselves to cover for the junior doctors. They claim the vacuum caused due to their absence has been mitigated but in reality that has strained the existing medical units including the surgery department, mostly covered by the senior doctors. The cease work by the junior doctors has created a backlog of cases for their senior counterparts, impacting the overall health facilities.

“We always called the doctors second to God but can God do injustice to us while seeking justice for themselves? I appeal to our doctors to come back. We are helpless without you all. Poor people can’t afford private hospitals. You are doing dharna, where will I go to seek justice from you”, said Nasir Mollah while leaving the hospital gate along with his brother Qutubuddin Purkai, 40. Purkai left the gate, exactly how he was brought there straight from the airport. He wasn’t keeping well for the past few days and the family called him back home. At the airport he had collapsed in pain in his lower abdomen. Not a single doctor had checked his condition at the emergency department and after three hours of futile exercise of walking inside the ward and the coming out, they decided to leave. But for where not known. “I don’t want to die, please save me”, Qutubuddin cried out loud as he was carried outside the gate in arms. Most of the stretchers are occupied by patients for their treatment in waiting.