West Bengal: Protesting doctors to meet CM Mamata Banerjee today
New Delhi, June 17 (IBNS): The protesting doctors are all set to meet West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the state secretariat Nabanna as their strike entered its sixth day on Monday.
Mamata on Sunday accepted the junior doctors' demand of an open meeting.
Altogether 28 representatives from 14 medical colleges will meet the CM to end the impasse.
The meeting will also be attended by the chief secretary, additional and principal secretary, health, and director, medical education.
Earlier on Sunday, after a long stand-off, the striking junior doctors put the ball in Mamata's court, expressing their readiness to meet Ms Banerjee at any venue she decides.
After the five-hour-long general body meeting this morning, the junior doctors said they want to meet the chief minister under camera supervision, thereby ruling out any closed-door meeting.
They said in a statement: “We have agreed to meet Ms Banerjee anywhere, but Nabanna or Raj Bhawan, under camera supervision."
Why did the strike start?
The junior doctors went for an indefinite strike across West Bengal after relatives of Kolkata's Tangra resident 85-year-old Md. Sayeed, whose death at the NRS Hospital prompted cries of medical negligence from them, brought some 200 people to the hospital and beat up junior doctors, seriously wounding Paribaha Mukhopadhayay on Monday night.
The matter got more complex after Banerjee visited the SSKM Hospital a day ago and lost her cool over the protesters.
Banerjee, amid sloganeering by the agitators, alleged that the protesters are "outsiders". She even sent an ultimatum to the agitators to join work within four hours or else they would face action. However, Banerjee's ultimatum didn't change the situation much.
Doctors from Delhi, Mumbai and other cities have also joined the protest against the assault on Mukhopadhyay.
Going tough with the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government, the Calcutta High Court on Friday asked the ruling dispensation to mediate with the junior doctors protesting against the attack on their mate Paribaha Mukhopadhyay.
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