Fighting COVID-19: Peeved with doctors, Didi pens song for cops

Shubhadeep Choudhury                                                                              

Tribune News Service

Kolkata, May 12

On International Nurses Day, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has greeted nurses for “selflessly attending to COVID-19 patients” with utter disregard to their personal safety.

Incidentally, the accolades for the nurses posted on her Facebook page turns out to be one of the rare instances of the Chief Minister lauding a group of professionals from the medical fraternity for their service at a critical juncture.

While governments across the world have been fawning over health workers engaged in fighting the dreaded COVID-19, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been extremely stingy in this respect.

When she decided to shower praise on a group of workers for their service at the time of the pandemic, she chose the police force.

Mamata Banerjee has penned verses to say “thank you” to the state police. The verse has been set to tune modelled on a popular song (Jab koi baat bigad jaye…) from Mahesh Bhatt film ‘Jurm’ (1990).

Sung by West Bengal’s Information and Cultural Affairs Minister Indranil Sen, an accomplished singer, the song accompanied by footage of various assistance activities by the police during the lockdown, has been posted on the Kolkata Police’s twitter handle.

Apparently, various issues raised by doctors from time-to-time in the wake of the pandemic has not gone down well with the Chief Minister resulting in her reluctance to acknowledge the work being done by the doctors, paramedics and other health workers.

On Tuesday also, the West Bengal Doctors Forum (WBDF) wrote to Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha drawing his attention to the supply problems of PPE kits and other logistic support to frontline doctors, including resident physicians.

The letter, which found its way to the media, also requested Sinha to publish in the daily bulletin the number of healthcare workers infected by COVID-19 and the number of HCWs in quarantine.

The WBDF missive followed a press release issued on Monday by junior doctors (Interns) at RG Kar Medical College to “express grievance and concern over the gross mismanagement during COVID-19 pandemic by the administrative authorities”.

On Sunday, the Association of Health Service Doctors of West Bengal wrote a stinging letter to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee warning her that the COVID-19 situation in the state might go out of control if appropriate measures were not initiated immediately.

The association wrote that COVID hospitals in Kolkata and Howrah were already overflowing with patients. “The critical care unit for serious COVID patients had not been developed in most of the COVID hospitals”, the Association pointed out in the letter.

West Bengal has also faced sharp criticism from the Centre for down-playing the figure regarding the number of people who lost their lives owing to the virus infection.