Nearly 300,000 resident doctors of government hospitals in India have been on strike since Monday after a 31-year-old resident trainee doctor was raped and murdered while working in Kolkata, the capital of India’s West Bengal state. As a result, elective and non-emergency procedures have been halted.
Her body was found last Friday in a seminar room at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, where she worked. A suspect has since been arrested, according to reports.
“This heartbreaking incident starkly highlights the glaring deficiencies in security within our medical institutions across the nation,” the Federation of Resident Doctors Association India (FORDA) said in a statement posted on X.
In the aftermath of the incident, FORDA has demanded that the government pass the Central Protection Act for Doctors, which they say will ensure the safety of health care workers across the country by creating a uniform definition of what violence entails and establishing clear penalties for perpetrators. FORDA is demanding that a committee be established to help expedite the ratification of the law and an immediate, transparent, and impartial investigation into the crime. (TIME)