Manirul Mollah, 47, lay unattended on a stretcher for more than 40 minutes outside Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital's emergency ward on Thursday.

Relatives of the Tangra resident later took him to NRS hospital. One of them said Mollah had been vomiting since morning.

He was among the many hit by the junior doctors' strike that began on Wednesday night following an assault on a postgraduate trainee.

Police said family members of Mohammed Kamaruddin had thrashed the trainee doctor, Gaurishankar Mahapatra, after the patient's death, alleging medical negligence.

By the time the strike was called off at 7.30pm on Thursday, the hospital was in disarray with most wards, including emergency, orthopaedic and gynaecology, being overcrowded and patients complaining of having had a tough time.

Over 150 junior doctors, representing the 300-odd who had boycotted work, sat in front of the emergency ward throughout the day, shouting slogans. At least 500 MBBS students boycotted classes as a mark of solidarity with the striking doctors.

Ambulances, cars and bikes had to stop a long way from the ward as the protesting doctors had almost occupied the entire area.

Babu Banerjee kept gasping in an ambulance as his family desperately searched for a stretcher. "He is too weak to walk till the emergency ward," a relative said before heading for another hospital.

Abbas Sardar of Baruipur could not get a blood transfusion done for his three-year-old thalassemic daughter as senior doctors were busy.

The emergency ward has 300 patients on average in each of the three shifts (morning, afternoon and night). "In the absence of junior doctors, two doctors have to share the load," a medical officer said.

One of the striking doctors said: "We feel for the patients. That's why we haven't gone for an all-out strike."

"We have become easy targets but the administration is not bothered," said another.

Mahapatra, the injured doctor, was once brought to the protest venue on a stretcher.

Around 3.50pm, hospital superintendent Pit Baran Chakraborty and principal Manjushree Roy met the striking doctors. More than 100 of them had a meeting with the authorities around 4.35 pm.

"We are sorry that one of them was beaten up for doing his duty," Chakraborty told Metro . "We'll sit with the deputy commissioner (south) for a security plan. He is on leave. In the interim period, additional police would be deployed in each ward. We'll issue a circular barring the entry of more than two people with a patient into the emergency ward."

Two people arrested in connection with the assault have been sent to four days' judicial custody.