28-05-2025
Posting change of RG Kar protesters a step back: Docs
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Kolkata: The progress in the medical education system, achieved by making the system transparent and clean, was being marred by the controversy over the last-minute changes in the bond posting of three senior resident doctors, felt many in the fraternity.
The three junior doctors—Debashis Halder, Aniket Mahata and Asfakulla Naiya —prominent faces of the RG Kar movement following the rape and murder of a PGT doctor in 2024, received their senior resident postings in hospitals different from those allotted to them during counselling.
The postings are assigned based on candidates' ranks on merit lists.
During the RG Kar movement, the state constituted a state-level grievance redress cell (SLGRC) to receive complaints from medical students and faculties to help the govt solve different issues.
Corrupt exam practices being a complaint voiced by many, the cell enforced a clean exam system. "This is the first time in many years that we saw such a fair examination and a clean evaluation system. These three junior doctors scaled through that system.
When they bagged those hospitals at counselling, why deny them now?" said a faculty member attached to MCH.
SLGRC chairman Sourav Datta, a head and neck onco-surgeon, said if the change in postings was for only those three, it was unfair.
"The govt has taken a series of confidence-building measures and positive steps. This incident could pose a barrier to these measures," said Datta. Infectious diseases associate professor Yogiraj Ray, a key member of the SLGRC, also termed the posting change 'aberrant'. "If there is a counselling procedure, the SRs should get the place of posting allocated to them during the counselling.
This is the norm followed everywhere," said Ray.
Mahata, Naiya and Halder have taken their grievance to state health officials. They said they would explore legal options if a solution did not emerge. "We are hopeful the state will heed our grievances and give us back our original postings, allocated to us during counselling," said anaesthesia specialist Mahata. They also pointed out this was not a case of transfer of govt employees as they were not yet employees.
It was a case of following the counselling procedure according to their merit, they said.
