CM to take stock of health facilities in state during meet with docs today
Kolkata: Chief Minister (CM) Mamata Banerjee is scheduled to hold an unprecedented meeting with the healthcare professionals from private and state-run hospitals at Dhanadhanya Auditorium on Monday where she may take a stock of the current health facilities in the state.
More than 3,000 doctors are expected to take part in the event. The state-level grievance redressal committee which was constituted by the state government following the instruction of the Chief Minister after the RG Kar incident to address issues of healthcare professionals is organising the meeting. A coalition of doctors, including the Joint Platform of Doctors and Abhaya Mancha, sent her letter highlighting severe deficiencies in the state’s healthcare system and demanding immediate reforms. The experts are of the view that such a meeting with a huge number of doctors is certainly going to be significant in the post RG Kar incident. It was learnt that the doctors belonging to various organisations will attend the meeting. As individuals, these doctors will be allowed to enter the meeting. Incidentally, the Chief Minister had met the members of the Junior Doctors Front who were continuing an agitation after the RG Kar incident and addressed their demands. The state government has also taken several steps to enhance security measures at the hospitals.
The letter sent to the CM by the Joint Platform of Doctors reads: “We still believe that if transparent and rational administrative decisions are made without delay, it is certainly possible to restore the lost dignity of the healthcare system through permanent, scientific reforms and restructuring.” The doctors warned that the healthcare system is at a “breaking point” and urged the chief minister to prevent a “catastrophic collapse”.
According to RTI data cited in the letter, about 40 per cent of doctor positions and nearly 70 per cent of paramedical and support staff positions remain vacant, based on the 1991 Establishment Table. The letter also criticised the bureaucratic approach to extending doctors’ working hours and entangling them in a “practice/non-practice” debate. The nature of medical service cannot be equated with that of a bureaucratic office job, they argued, emphasising the need to analyse the root causes of the crisis and implement permanent solutions.
