Indian medical professionals started a 24-hour shutdown of non-emergency services across the country in protest against the brutal rape and murder of a doctor in the eastern city of Kolkata.
The shutdown, which began at 6am local time (1.30am Irish time), will cut off access to elective medical procedures and out-patient consultations in the world’s most populous nation, according to a statement by the Indian Medical Association.
Casualty departments at hospitals, which deal with emergencies, will continue to be staffed.
A 31-year old trainee doctor was raped and murdered last week inside a medical college in Kolkata where she worked, triggering nationwide protests among doctors and drawing parallels to the notorious gang rape and murder of a 23-year-oldstudent on a moving bus in New Delhi in 2012.
Anger at the failure of tough laws to deter a rising tide of violence against women has fuelled protests by doctors and women’s groups.
“Women form the majority of our profession in this country. Time and again, we have asked for safety for them,” IMA President R V Asokan told Reuters yesterday.
More than a million medics were expected to join the strike.
In Kolkata, thousands held a candle-lit vigil into the early hours of this morning.
The murdered doctor was found in the teaching hospital’s seminar hall, suggesting she had gone there for a rest during a 36-hour shift.
An autopsy confirmed sexual assault and, in a petition to the court, the victim’s parents said they suspected their daughter was gang-raped.
One man, who worked at the hospital helping people navigate busy queues, has been detained.
However, Kolkata’s police were accused by an angry public of mishandling the case and the city’s High Court transferred the investigation to India’s top Central Bureau of Investigation to “inspire public confidence”.
Those in government hospitals across several states on Monday halted elective services “indefinitely”, with multiple medical unions in both government and private systems backing the strikes.
The Indian Medical Association (IMA) escalated protests this morning with a 24-hour “nationwide withdrawal of services”, and the suspension of all non-essential procedures.
“We ask for the understanding and support of the nation in this struggle for justice for its doctors and daughters,” IMA chief R.V. Asokan said in a statement ahead of the strike.
The IMA called the killing “barbaric”.
“The 36-hour duty shift that the victim was in and the lack of safe spaces to rest… warrant a thorough overhaul of the working and living conditions of the resident doctors,” the IMA said in a statement.
Doctors are demanding the implementation of the Central Protection Act, a bill to protect healthcare workers from violence.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanded on Thursday swift punishment for those who commit “monstrous” deeds against women.
Sexual violence against women is a widespread problem in India – an average of nearly 90 rapes a day were reported in 2022 in the country of 1.4 billion people.
For many, the gruesome nature of the hospital attack has invoked comparisons with the horrific 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus.
That woman became a symbol of socially conservative India’s failure to tackle sexual violence against women.
Her death sparked huge, and at times violent, demonstrations in Delhi and elsewhere.
Under pressure, the government introduced harsher penalties for rapists and the death penalty for repeat offenders.
Several new sexual offences were also introduced – including for stalking – and officials who refuse to register rape complaints can now be jailed.