Resident doctors of several government hospitals across the country joined the ongoing protest to express solidarity with their Kolkata counterparts who have been on strike after a junior doctor was allegedly beaten up by the kin of a 75-year-old patient who died there late on Monday night.
In Maharashtra, around 4,500 doctors started their one-day token strike, an office-bearer said here on Friday.
The medicos, affiliated to Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD), stopped attending to patients in all the 26 government hospitals in the state simultaneously.
MARD general secretary Deepak Mundhe said the doctors will keep off all routine duties between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. and the hospital administration has been informed to ensure all other services are not hampered or patients inconvenienced.
A large number of doctors gathered outside the KEM Hospital with banners, posters and placards to show solidarity with the doctors who were assaulted in Kolkata.
Similar protests were also being held in Pune, Aurangabad and Nagpur by MARD members who are demanding adequate protection for their counterparts in West Bengal.
The doctors of several government hospitals in Delhi too went on a one-day token strike and boycotted work. Except for emergency services in the hospitals, there was a full shutdown of all outpatient departments (OPDs), routine operation theatre services and ward visits.
Resident doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Safdarjung hospitals expressed their demonstration with bandages on their heads in a symbolic protest and suspended all non-emergency services.
Only follow-up patients with a prior appointment were being registered in OPD while registration of new patients was being done as per availability of the faculty in AIIMS and Safdarjung hospitals.
Diagnostic services were also functioning in a restricted manner.
The doctors at Jaipuria hospital in Jaipur, however, carried out their duties wearing black bands as a mark of protest. In Kerala, the doctors affiliated to the Indian Medical Association, Trivandrum held a protest over the violence against doctors in West Bengal. Doctors at Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad also held a protest march over the violence against doctors in West Bengal.
The protest erupted on Tuesday after a 75-year-old patient died in Kolkata late on Monday night. The family members of the deceased alleged medical negligence. An 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.