Suryakant Jena

Cuttack: Amid national outrage and intense cease work stir of doctors paralysing health services at hospitals across India following a mob attack on a junior doctor in West Bengal on Monday, doctors in Odisha have now joined the nationwide strike today.

Over 500 Junior medicos and Resident doctors of All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Bhubaneswar today launched a cease work strike protesting the attack incident on the junior doctor. Issuing a press release, the Residents' Doctor Association, AIIMS, Bhubaneswar condemned the incident and said that it is disheartened and saddened about the grievous and heinous crime against the medical fraternity of West Bengal.

Despite the cease work strike, the emergency services at the State's premier health institute has remained unaffected.

Earlier yesterday, students of SCB and Odisha Medical Services Association also staged an agitation in Cuttack.

Hundreds of protesting medicos took out a mass rally from Principal’s office to the main gate of the SCB Medical College and Hospital. Later they burnt effigies of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as a mark of protest.

Striking junior doctors across West Bengal are still adamant on continuing their protest till their demands on security in government hospitals are met. On Thursday, agitating doctors defied Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s ultimatum to return to work by 2 pm.

West Bengal CM has come down heavily on the protesters alleging that opposition BJP was behind the agitation and giving communal colour to the issue.

Meanwhile, the India Medical Association and several other medical bodies have unanimously joined to observe "All India Protest Day" on Friday against the incident expressing solidarity with the agitating doctors in West Bengal.

On Monday, a doctor Paribaha Mukherjee from Kolkata's NRS Medical College was brutally attacked by family members of a patient who died while undergoing treatment at the hospital. Mukherjee is fighting for his life.

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