Stalemate at Goa Medical College ends with visit by CM Sawant and symbolic apology to a chair

Addressing the media after the meeting, the Chief Minister said, “They placed seven demands before me. We have agreed to fulfil the seven demands, including barring videography and photography in patient care areas and to appoint a police sub-inspector at the police outpost at the hospital and additional police force for protection. They demanded that such an incident should never happen again, and there should be a vigilance committee… and for protocols to be followed.”

“Considering this and honouring my words, the Goa Association of Resident Doctors (GARD), faculty doctors, consultants and others have decided to call off their strike, and I thank them for that. The GMC is an apex medical institute. Such a strike would not be fair in the interest of the people, and if it were to continue, the patients and people would have suffered,” said Sawant.

On the demand for a public apology from the Health Minister, Sawant said, “I have spoken to the doctors and to Dr Rudresh and the issue has been laid to rest.”

On Monday, Dr Rudresh Kuttikar, the chief medical officer of GMC, rejected an apology tendered by Health Minister Rane, who was seen in a viral video reprimanding the senior doctor during a visit to the hospital. Kuttikar had demanded that the minister publicly apologise at the Casualty Department of the hospital, where Rane berated him on Saturday.

The standoff ended on Tuesday with a “symbolic” apology to the “chair” — the same one the Health Minister sat on during his tirade on Saturday — by all the doctors, with the Chief Minister present.

Dr Madhu Ghodkirekar, who represented the Casualty medical officers at the closed-door meeting, told The Indian Express, “The issue was misunderstood… Many people thought the (health) minister should come and apologise to the doctor. What it meant was that the minister should apologise to the chair that was insulted. Because it was the chair of Casualty medical officers, which has its own legacy and sanctity.”

Speaking to the media, Ghodkirekar said Kuttikar had not asked for an apology for himself, “but to the profession and the ‘chair’ (of the CMO) that he represents. The minister sat on a chair he was not supposed to sit on and did what he did. So, we brought that very chair, and all of us doctors, in front of the Chief Minister, apologised and pledged that we would not allow it to be insulted.”

He said that while the main issue was the demand for an apology from the health minister, “I can say that no government officer has the right to call a minister here to apologise. The health minister has apologised on social media, and that is fine. We are awaiting the contents of the apology to be sent from the proper channel to the concerned doctor.”

However, a whiteboard at the hospital on Tuesday read, “Public apology by HM (health minister), nothing more, nothing less. You can persuade one doctor, but you can’t convince all doctors to accept fake apology.”

The resident doctors association, GARD, said in a statement on Tuesday night that it had unanimously decided to call off the impending statewide strike “in the paramount interest of public health and to prevent any disruption to patient care”.

“We appreciate the Chief Minister’s willingness to engage with the medical fraternity and his assurances regarding our legitimate concerns, particularly the prevention of similar incidents and the cessation of ‘VIP culture’ in the healthcare setup. This dialogue was crucial when direct communication with the head of the state’s health apparatus was essential, but felt very much lacking towards the end.”

“We would also like to reiterate that GARD remains unwavering in its commitment to the resident community and is in no way associated, influenced, or representative of any individual, their spokespersons, their statements or any politically driven agenda, and in no way associated with any incident causing humiliation of our own medical fraternity,” it said.