Since yesterday, the resident doctors of Delhi’s Hindu Rao Hospital have been on strike. They are protesting against the alleged assault of one of their colleagues by the attendants of a patient. The doctor is said to have been attacked on Saturday.
Delhi: Resident doctors of Hindu Rao Hospital are on a strike since yesterday, alleging that attendants of a patient assaulted a doctor there on Saturday. Doctors say that only emergency services will be operational. pic.twitter.com/oyXdhF3jg4
— ANI (@ANI) July 1, 2019
Allegedly, despite explaining the poor condition of the patient, a group of 10-15 men had come in and thrashed the doctor. At the moment only emergency services are operational.
Dr Abhishek Bhatia: As long as this happens we won’t do any work. Only emergency services,& nothing else, will be operational. A doctor was thrashed & injured here last night. Patient wasn’t in a good condition,everything was explained, even then 10-15 people came&thrashed doctor pic.twitter.com/ElLHSQLTHM
— ANI (@ANI) July 1, 2019
The patient had come into the emergency room with stage V chronic renal failure. “The patient was gasping for breath and had very poor vitals. She had been recommended dialysis thrice a week but had not been following directions. The attending doctor explained her condition to the attendants. She was declared dead soon. The attendants became violent when the doctor was signing the death certificate and the attending doctor was beaten up. He received cuts on his head. We will be on strike today. Emergency services will be available”, said Dr Piyush Singh, the acting president of the Resident Doctors’ Association at the hospital.
The Resident Doctors’ Association has written a letter detailing the incident. The doctors have also demanded better security.
This is inform the concern authorities regarding strike in hindurao hospital due to assault in medical emergency today at around 1:30am.
Press released attached@DCPNorthBCP @suraiya95 @rahul1987aiims @AIIMSRDA @UnitedRda @IMAIndiaOrg @drharshvardhan @drmanishjain680 @RdaCnbc pic.twitter.com/ZWwozbZAGk— HRDA (@HRDAofficial) June 30, 2019
Two doctors were reportedly beaten up in the scuffle and were admitted to the hospital. Several members of the nursing staff were allegedly attacked too. The police have said that an FIR has been filed under sections 186, 353, 332 of IPC and sections 3 and 4 of Delhi Medical Service Personnel and Medicare Service (Prevention of Violence and Damage to Property) Act, 2008.
North Corporation commissioner Varsha Joshi has said that the matter is being taken seriously and that there was no medical negligence on the part of the doctors.
Such incidents have happened before. Dr Sanjeev Choudhary, general secretary, RDA, said, “This is not the first time this has happened. We have demanded better security at the hospital previously as well, but since the corporation has no money to even pay our salaries, one can imagine if they can at all afford us any protection from such incidents”.
Last month doctors all arranged a nationwide strike protesting against the assault of doctors at the NRS Hospital in West Bengal. The protests were aggravated by the insensitive comments of CM Mamata Banerjee. The week-long protest was finally called off after having an amicable meeting with the Chief Minister.