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Kolkata, Oct 25 (IANS) West Bengal Chief Secretary Manoj Pant has called an emergency meeting at the state secretariat Nabanna on Saturday to address the important issue of safety in all medical establishments in the state.
The meeting has been called amid recent incidents like molestation of a minor girl on the premises of the government SSKM Medical College and Hospital in south Kolkata, attack on a woman junior doctor at another government hospital in Uluberia in Howrah district adjoining Kolkata and attack on a nursing staff member inside a primary health center in Mohammad Bazar in Birbhum district.
All these incidents happened within the last seven days. After these incidents, the state administration was severely criticized from all sides.
Critics claimed the state government “has not learned any lessons” from the horrific rape and murder of a junior doctor at the government-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata last year on the hospital premises.
The meeting to be held later in the day will be attended by all top officials associated with the state health department, principals and medical superintendents of all medical colleges, district magistrate, district superintendent of police, commissioner of Kolkata Police and chief medical officer (health).
A senior official of the state health department said, “The main agenda of today’s meeting is to review the existing security arrangements in place in state-run medical establishments, identify loopholes and suggest appropriate measures. Also, there is a possibility of how to involve private medical establishments in ensuring standard operating security procedures.”
Recently, the Association of Health Service Doctors, a premier body of doctors in West Bengal, has issued an appeal to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who as a minister is also in-charge of the state Health and Family Welfare department, to initiate the creation of a dedicated “Hospital Protection Force” in the state, on the lines of the Railway Protection Force (RPF), whose jurisdiction will include both government and private medical establishments in the state.
–IANS
source/svn