India’s doctors strike nationwide over Kolkata rape and murder
Hospitals and clinics across India turned away patients except for emergency cases on Saturday as medical professionals started a 24-hour shutdown in protest against the brutal rape and murder of a doctor in the eastern city of Kolkata.
More than one million doctors were expected to join the strike, paralyzing medical services across the world’s most populous nation. Hospitals said faculty staff from medical colleges had been pressed into service for emergency cases.
The government, in a statement issued on Saturday after a meeting with representatives of medical associations, urged doctors to return to duties in the public interest.
A 31-year old trainee doctor was raped and murdered last week inside the medical college in Kolkata where she worked, triggering nationwide protests among doctors and drawing parallels to the notorious gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi in 2012.
The strike, which began at 6 a.m. (0030 GMT), cut off access to elective medical procedures and out-patient consultations, according to a statement by the Indian Medical Association (IMA).“Junior doctors have all been on strike, so this would mean 90% of doctors are on strike,” Sanjeev Singh Yadav, a representative of the IMA in the southern state of Telangana