Physicians across Bangladesh called off their strike on the second day of their two-day strike as two Central Hospital doctors, accused of negligence and wrong treatment that caused death of a woman and her baby, secured bail.

‘Physicians will resume seeing patients in private chambers and start all activities including surgeries from today,’ said the director general of the Directorate General of Health Services, ABM Khurshid Alam, also the president of the Society of Surgeons of Bangladesh, who expressed solidarity with the strike to stop private practices and surgeries countrywide on July 17 and 18, at a press briefing in the capital.

The strike caused acute sufferings of patients across the country.

On June 15, two doctors of the Central Hospital, a private hospital in the Dhaka city, were arrested as they were made accused in a case of negligence and giving wrong treatment to a pregnant woman, who died seven days after the death of her newborn.

The baby died hours after he was born on June 10, while his ill-fated mother – Mahbuba Rahman Akhi – plunged into a state of unconsciousness from where she never woke up.

Akhi was shifted to another hospital in the city and died seven days later, on June 18.

Top bodies of medical professionals, including the Society of Surgeons of Bangladesh, the Gynaecological Oncology Society of Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Society of Radiology and Imaging, the Bangladesh Paediatric Association, the Society of Neurologists of Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Society of Medicine, the Bangladesh Dermatological Society, and the Bangladesh Association of Psychiatrists, joined the strike called by Obstetrical and Gynaecologists Society of Bangladesh.