WB: Leading Private Hospitals on OPD Strike after Extortion and Violence at CMRI Hospital

Kolkata: On the backdrop of a series of relentless violence incidents against doctors and other medical professionals and the alleged inaction by police and administration regarding the violence and extortion cases in various medical institutes,  leading hospital in West Bengal had shut their OPD doors to patients  today.

In a first of its kind pan private hospitals strike,  private practitioners and hospitals were seen doing a  complete cease work, suspending all non emergency activities. Doctors were showing complete solidarity with their colleagues of CMRI hospital who were left in an extortion-like situation, when a patient's kin refused to pay more than Rs 8,000 after being given a Rs-75,000 bill.  Threatening the hospital staff about money, the patient's relatives soon brought in goons, who abused and threatened doctors and administrative staff inside the hospital.

This bill was really conservative, considering the fact that the patient stayed at the hospital for 20 days and underwent a complicated surgery," a senior physician said. Frustrated over the said incident, the CMRI hospitals doctors decided not to admit any new patient. In addition to this, an FIR was registered against the patient's kin under various sections of extortion, cheating, and threat.

Doctors on Friday formed a body called the United Doctors' Voice of Bengal, which called for an OPD closure in all private hospitals and nursing homes and decided to block all the OPD services at hospital premises at least on Saturday.