Kolkata: The main gate of Kolkata’s R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital is heavily guarded. A few steps in and you can see a life-size representation of the postgraduate trainee doctor who was raped and killed on campus on August 9. The figure is shown to be wearing a white apron and has a black ribbon tied around her eyes. There are three other symbolic paintings of her’s. One has been garlanded with white flowers.
Right behind these are seated the doctors who are protesting against the crime.
The walls of the makeshift shelter carry various posters, drawings, and short poems demanding justice. The messages are loud and clear: “Stop sexual abuse, stop rape”, “We want justice” and “Who will give us justice?”
Two Kolkata Police officials could be seen guarding the entrance of the emergency ward which was severely vandalised on August 15. At every department entrance throughout the premises are either CISF or police officials.
On loudspeakers rang repeated requests to not to gather in groups following the imposition of Section 163 (formerly Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code) since August 18.
The emergency division at R.G. Kar. Photo: Joymala Bagchi/The Wire
The medical students actively involved with the ongoing protest all stated that a sense of fear prevails despite beefed up security. All the doctors who The Wire spoke to requested anonymity.
A female trainee doctor said, “Nowhere in our wildest thoughts had we ever imagined that we would find some one so brutally raped and murdered at our workplace. This workplace is our second home and should be the safest place possible, but since August 9 and 15, the air is unsafe. We are yet to get answers from the authorities. What are they doing to protect us, what measures they have taken?”
She said that while Central paramilitary forces are present at the hospital no one know how long they will be there or if their safety depends exclusively on them,
“All of our parents are calling at regular intervals and checking on us – something they hardly used to do,” she added.
More than one female protesting doctor told The Wire that the hospital was severely lacking in security.
Doctors protesting at R.G. Kar. Their faces have been blurred to protect their identity. Photo: Joymala Bagchi/The Wire.
“In our hostel for 200 people there was just one guard. Several times it has happened that the patients’ families have formed lines in front of our hostels to get treatment faster. We do not have separate washrooms for men and women and there are times when I have to hold my pee for as long as 24 hours. Our basic rights are overlooked all the time but we have never considered this an issue because we thought it is a government hospital and that we need to adjust because this is the best the government can give us,” a doctor said.
Another female trainee doctor added, “Till date we do not have proper rest rooms and even if we have a rest room we do not have properly working doors – they do not have a latch and a bolt. Quite often there are only one washroom in the entire floor which is used by patients, doctors and other people. Life was hard but we were doing it as we wanted to serve the people.”
A female MBBS final year student said that there is only one CCTV camera on the ground floor of her hostel and that the other floors do not have CCTV cameras.
Another doctor spoke of dealing with intoxicated attendants of patients with little help from non-existent security.
Doctors said the protest at R.G. Kar is to get justice for the junior doctor, but added that it is also against the systematic injustice that the students have been dealing with for years.
Handwritten posters at R.G. Kar. Photo: Joymala Bagchi/The Wire
“This protest is also against the authority, against the administration, against whoever is responsible for all the security lapses that have happened from day one. From the delayed FIR, to the renovation beside the crime scene, to the vandalism…the administration needs to be held accountable. We are demanding answers to our questions, we are demanding an apology, we are demanding strict disciplinary action,” said another doctor.
The West Bengal Junior Doctor’s Forum (WBJDF), the umbrella association of junior doctors which is spearheading the protest, has extended the demand for a written apology as well.
Another doctor from the chest medicine department recalls a one-and-a-half-year-old incident. When he came in from out of the state to complete his registration, he was told that he needed the signature of the now removed principal, Sandip Ghosh. Ghosh is being questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation at present. “The narrative of his unapproachability was such that I was told upon going to his office that the best I could do was to get the dean’s signature instead,” the doctor said.
Attendants wait with policemen at R.G. Kar. Photo: Joymala Bagchi/The Wire
Several doctors said that multiple complaints were not taken seriously. “In most cases the students could never meet the principal, even though we have tried to get an appointment with him several times,” a protesting doctor said.
An ex-student of R.G. Kar, from the 2022 batch, told The Wire that he has seen the situation worsen steadily. “No principal before the immediate ex-principal had a personal body of guards, for one,” he said.
The doctors say that there is a noteworthy difference this time – the involvement of people outside the hospital. “We have received immense support and it is heart-wrenching that it has come after a horrible incident,” a doctor said.
Joymala Bagchi is an independent journalist.
