New Delhi, 16 Aug

The IMA on Friday put forth five demands, including a thorough overhaul of the working and living conditions of resident doctors and a central law to check violence against healthcare professionals at workplaces.

The IMA has declared a nationwide withdrawal of non-emergency medical services for 24 hours beginning from 17 August  6am to protest against the rape and murder of a resident doctor at a hospital in Kolkata.

All essential services will be maintained and casualties will be manned, the IMA said in a statement. The routine OPDs will not function and elective surgeries will not be conducted. The withdrawal is across all the sectors wherever modern medicine doctors are providing service, the doctors' body said.

The IMA demanded a thorough overhaul of the working and living conditions of resident doctors, including the 36-hour duty shift that the victim was in and the lack of safe spaces to take a rest. It has also demanded that hospitals be declared safe zones with the first step being mandatory security entitlements.

"The security protocols of all hospitals should be no less than (that of) an airport. Declaring the hospitals as safe zones with mandatory security entitlements is the first step. CCTVs, deployment of security personnel and the protocols can follow," the IMA said in statement.

The doctors' body also called for meticulous and professional investigation of the crime in a specific time-frame and rendering of justice besides identifying those involved in the vandalism of the hospital premises and awarding exemplary punishment.

It also sought an appropriate and dignified compensation to the bereaved family commensurate with the cruelty inflicted.

"The RG Kar incident has brought to the fore two dimensions of violence in the hospital: A crime of barbaric scale due to the lack of safe spaces for women and the hooliganism that is unleashed due to lack of an organised security protocol.

"The crime and the vandalism have shocked the conscience of the nation. Today, both the medical fraternity and the nation are victims," the statement said.