The Indian Medical Association, the largest association of modern medicine doctors in India, has called for the suspension of non-emergency medical services for 24 hours across the country after a female trainee doctor was raped and murdered last week at a hospital.
The association, with about 350,000 members, declared that the “nationwide withdrawal of services by doctors of modern medicine” would begin at 6 a.m. local time on Saturday and end 6 a.m. the next day.
“All essential services will be maintained,” the group wrote in a statement. “Routine OPDs will not function and elective surgeries will not be conducted.”
Protests have broken out across India this week, with hundreds of thousands of medical professionals and activists taking to the streets calling for better health care worker protections following the incident that occurred in the eastern city of Kolkata, the capital of India’s West Bengal state.
The IMA alleged that police and authorities had handled the murder and rape case “shabbily.”
Reuters reported that the 31-year-old victim was killed inside the medical college where she worked, and was found dead last Friday.
The victim was found bleeding from her eyes and mouth, and sustained injuries on her legs, stomach, ankles, right hand and finger, the outlet reported. Police said she had been raped and a police volunteer was later arrested in connection with the crime.
Earlier in the week, several government hospitals across the world’s most populous country had temporarily suspended non-emergency services to protest the incident.
On Thursday, Indian Independence Day, thousands of women in West Bengal also held a march to demand justice for the victim, local media reported.
There were more than 31,500 reported rape cases in India in 2022. Although this was a slight decline from the prior year, it is still higher than 2010 to 2013, when reported cases ranged from around 22,000 to 24,000. Data past 2022 has not been made publicly available.
Source: CNBC