KOLKATA: Indian health workers have called a nationwide strike next week to protest over growing safety concerns at work, after three doctors were badly beaten in the state of West Bengal, officials said Friday .
Asokan said more than 300,000 of the organisation's members began a three-day protest on Friday, wearing black badges to show solidarity with their colleagues in West Bengal.Medical professionals in West Bengal's capital Kolkata have been on strike since Monday, when a family assaulted three doctors after a relative died during treatment at a state-run hospital.
An ultimatum by the state government to end the protest has been ignored, with medical workers demanding the chief minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee apologise for comments they say trivialised the attack on the three doctors.Thousands of patients and their relatives seeking treatment were left to wait in front of hospitals in Kolkata amid reports of fresh acts of violence at some hospitals.