Healthcare services in WB affected as docs protest rape-murder of colleague

Healthcare services took a hit across West Bengal on Saturday as doctors joined their junior colleagues in the cease work, demanding justice for the rape and murder of a medic at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. Junior doctors began the stir eight days ago, and with the seniors joining in following a call by the Indian Medical Association (IMA), services at the outpatient departments of both government and private hospitals were affected. "Our agitation will continue. This is the only way to get our demands fulfilled. How can people get inside the hospital and attack us even when the police are present? We can understand the actual motive of the vandalism," a protesting doctor said. Non-essential healthcare services at the state-run SSKM Hospital, Sambhunath Pandit Hospital, and Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital, among others, were crippled because of the agitation. Similar was the scene at the private healthcare facilities in the state. Manipal Hospitals said