TimesView A message must go out to everyone that every healthcare establishment is a zero-tolerance-to-violence zone; there cannot be any violence at hospitals. There should be a detailed probe into what exactly went wrong on Monday night and why things spun so terribly out of control. There has been terrible violence, two young doctors have been seriously injured and thousands of patients would be suffering because of the doctors' stir. But it would help both doctors and patients if this incident can be used to probe the ills plaguing our healthcare system so that there is no recurrence of such incidents.

KOLKATA: Anarchy seemed to reign over Bengal’s healthcare system on Wednesday, with mobs chasing and attacking doctors at medical colleges in Burdwan and Midnapore and the doctors’ stir — to protest against the murderous assault on junior doctors at NRS Hospital late on Monday night — showing no sign of abating.Outpatients’ departments and emergency wards stopped working at several government hospitals on Wednesday morning before doctors started attending to patients at emergency wards. But, in an unprecedented show of solidarity, a cross-section of private establishments and even private practitioners, too, joined the cease-work, which complicated matters for thousands of patients all over the state.Condemnation of the assault on doctors kept social media, too, busy throughout Wednesday, with many doctors outside Bengal expressing solidarity, using hashtags like #standwithNRS and #SavetheDoctor that trended on Twitter and Facebook.There were voices of sanity as well, warning against a collapse of the system and the doctor-patient relationship. But, around 36 hours after the attack that left two interns critically injured, few on either side were willing to compromise. Kolkata Police commissioner Anuj Sharma directed the Special Task Force joint commissioner to probe the incident but agitating doctors said it was too little, too late, as they demanded CM Mamata Banerjee ’s “direct intervention”.State additional chief secretary (health) Rajiva Sinha said on Wednesday that CM Banerjee was personally monitoring the situation and issuing necessary instructions. He also appealed to agitating junior doctors to withdraw their agitation but the latter refused to relent, pointing out that one of their key demands — the CM’s personal intervention into the issue of doctors’ security on hospital campuses — was yet to be met.The shutdown of emergency and outpatients’ services inconvenienced several thousand patients, triggering an angry response to the stir from the public and prompting many seniors in the medical community to wonder whether a continuing agitation would be self-destructive for the doctors’ cause. At Burdwan Medical College, for instance, a local politician allegedly led a mob that turned on agitating doctors; four doctors were injured — two of them in the eye — in the ensuing brickbatting. At Midnapore Medical College, two post-graduate students, including a woman, were heckled.The situation in Kolkata was as chaotic, with thousands of patients who travelled here from the districts being caught unawares.Many of them lay unattended outside hospitals under the scorching sun for hours, waiting for some facilities to resume. Some relatives tried to rush their patients to other government hospitals but it was the same story everywhere. Families had to struggle to get hold of even stretchers after reaching hospitals by ambulance as even ancillary services were not available.Relatives of patients at NRS, the epicentre of the stir, reacted with fury to the doctors’ agitation and blocked the arterial AJC Bose Road. Cops had to cordon off the emergency department at SSKM Hospital to prevent the public from ransacking it to vent their frustration.Junior doctors at Medical College & Hospital (MCH) sat in protest in front of the entrance to the emergency building, a big banner summing up the mood: “No protection, no service”. “We are not providing any service, including emergency, outpatients care or surgery. We will not lift the agitation till we are provided adequate security and those who assaulted our colleagues at NRS are punished,” MCH intern Aniket Chatterjee said.Protesting students and junior doctors at Calcutta National Medical College & Hospital shut the main gate with a poster and, at R G Kar Hospital, protesting junior doctors took over the entire emergency department.There was one positive news amidst the deadlock. Paribaha Mukhopadhyay and Yash Tekwani, the two junior doctors injured in the NRS attack, were on the recovery path and out of danger. Mukhopadhyay, who was left with a dent on his skull after being hit with a brick, underwent a surgery on Tuesday and was moved out of ICU on Wednesday; Tejkwani continued to remain at the ICU for a rib fracture and spine injury.