KOLKATA: CM Mamata Banerjee on Monday announced a slew of benefits for doctors, while outlining her administration’s expectations from them, at her first conclave with health professionals since the August 2024 rape-murder of an RG Kar junior doctor.
Banerjee, who addressed around 4,000 healthcare workers at the Dhanadhanya Auditorium, announced significant hikes – ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000 – for junior and senior resident doctors as well as specialists working at state-run hospitals. She also increased the private-practice distance cap from 20 km to 30 km for state service doctors (they can now conduct private practice up to 30 km from their workplace) and, in another significant decision, scrapped the suspension of seven Midnapore Medical College junior doctors (which followed the death of a young mother after a Caesarean delivery).
The CM also outlined her expectations from the community: doctors should spend at least the required eight hours at their workplace and seniors should not leave patient care, including Caesarean deliveries, to junior doctors. Doctors should not have any “political colour”; they should rise above politics and have “only one colour (humanity)”, she said.
Monday’s meet, organised by the grievance cell set up by the state in the wake of the RG Kar crime and the public protests that followed it, was Banerjee’s first with a general body of doctors following the August 9 incident (though she has met agitating doctors as well as other small groups of doctors in the interim). Her 40-minute speech started with a reference to the RG Kar crime: “I extend my condolences to the family of the sister who was killed. We demand proper punishment. Our government has passed the Aparajita Bill but it is pending (with Rashtrapati Bhavan). I give the responsibility to my brothers (so that such incidents are not repeated); you protect our sisters. Sisters, too, should protect their brothers.”