A woman resident doctor at the Sion Hospital in Mumbai was allegedly assaulted by a drunk patient and his family, police said on Sunday.
The patient and his family came to the hospital because he had injuries on his face.
Sharing information, police said, “At around 3:45 PM on August 18 in Ward 3 of Sion Hospital, a patient, who was intoxicated and had been injured on his face came to the hospital. While the female doctor was examining his face, the patient began screaming in pain and shouting insults at the female doctor.”
Dr Akshya More, General Secretary of Sion-Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) and BMC-MARD, also spoke about the incident and said, “The patient arrived in casualty after midnight in an intoxicated state with 7-8 relatives. He was involved in an assault before he came to the hospital, and had injury marks on his face. Owing to his injuries, he was given an ENT reference around 3:30 am. Our on-call resident doctor in the ENT department was a female.”
“Following a routine procedure, she undressed the wounds to examine them. That is when the patient started verbally abusing her. The relatives, instead of controlling the patient, started verbally abusing the resident doctor. Things escalated to physical assault very quickly,” said the doctor.
Adding further, he said, “Nurses intervened but by then the doctor had sustained abrasions on her hands. By the time security was called, the patient and the relatives had fled. Such incidents are very frequent and mostly go unreported but we could not let this one slide, especially after what happened in Kolkata.”
Based on the statement of the female doctor, Sion Police Station of Mumbai registered a case of misbehaviour and assault.
The Sion police registered a case under sections 115(2), 352, 3(5) and 3,4 of the BNS and the Maharashtra Medical Services and Medical Services Institutions (Prevention of Violent Acts and Loss or Damage to Property) Act, 2010.
Further details on the matter are awaited.
The incident comes amid the nationwide protests after a postgraduate trainee doctor at RG Kar Hospital in Kolkata was allegedly raped and murdered on August 9.
(This news report is published from a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has not been written or edited by OpIndia staff)
