NEW DELHI: A full-blown confrontation has erupted at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, with the faculty members launching a strike to protest the removal of a senior cardiac surgeon from his post of Head of Department (HoD) following a sexual harassment complaint.
More than a hundred professors are staging a sit-in at the Ramalingaswami Board Room, one of the main conference halls of the institute, demanding that the administration revoke the order removing Dr AK Bisoi as HoD of the Cardio-Thoracic and Vascular Surgery (CTVS) department.
Dr Amarinder Singh Malhi, General Secretary of the Faculty Association of AIIMS (FAIMS), said the faculty would continue their protest until the decision is withdrawn. “We have the support of other staff associations, including the Officers’ Association, Karamchari Union and the Unity of Allied Healthcare Professionals. We will stay here until the administration revokes the removal order of Dr Bisoi,” he said.
The decision to strike was taken at a meeting convened on Friday evening, attended by representatives of various associations except the nurses’ union.
Dr Bisoi was removed from his post on October 10 after a female nurse lodged a complaint of workplace and sexual harassment against him. The complaint, which reached the Prime Minister’s Office, prompted the administration to act, leading to his abrupt removal. The move has triggered a rare open conflict between doctors and nurses at the premier institution.
The Faculty Association has denounced the action as “a violation of natural justice,” alleging that the senior professor was not given a chance to defend himself before being removed. The nurses’ union, in turn, has accused the faculty of trivialising a case of harassment and turning it into doctors vs nurses
The case is currently being investigated by the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC), which held its first hearing on Thursday. A separate fact-finding committee has also been constituted to look into the administrative aspects of the case.
When contacted, an AIIMS spokesperson said, “We have not been intimated by FAIMS about their strike, so I can’t comment on that. Regarding Dr Bisoi’s case, the matter is under investigation by the ICC and a separate fact-finding committee.”
Senior officials at the institute defended the decision to remove Dr Bisoi from his post, arguing that it was a procedural step to ensure an impartial inquiry. “His removal was necessary to maintain fairness in the probe since, as the head of the department, he could have influenced the process,” said one official.