Nearly 300 doctors resigned from government hospitals in West Bengal as their protest against an attack on their colleagues earlier this week in Kolkata escalated on Friday. Demanding better security at hospitals, doctors in Bengal and across India skipped work and held demonstrations. The country's top medical body also announced a nationwide strike on Monday. Blaming the Mamata Banerjee government for the stalemate, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan appealed to her to "not make it a prestige issue".