NEW DELHI: The medicos at Delhi Government-run Deep Chand Bandhu hospital returned to work on Monday after boycotting OPD and Emergency services for facing assaults from patients’ attendants in last week.
Ending their two-day strike, the doctors said that they decided to resume working after assurance from the hospital administration about institutional FIR against people who acted violently with the medicos.
According to the doctors, four incidents of assault were reported in a week. Recalling the incidents, Dr Sahil Malik, president of the Resident Doctors Association (RDA) of the hospital said,
“The first incident happened in the labour room a few days ago when one of our female doctors was assaulted. The next day, another incident happened in an emergency when the attendants of the patient argued with the duty doctor and threatened him with dire consequences. The third happened in the orthopaedic department where a junior doctor was assaulted by the relatives of a patient.”
The last happened on Saturday which triggered the medicos to protest. “A lady patient came in an emergency with many attendants who forced us to treat her first. Since the case was not very critical, we asked them to wait. But they resorted to violence,” said Malik.
Doctors have pointed to the dearth of security as the biggest reason behind such incidents. “There are only two guards outside the emergency. We demand adequate security from the hospital,” Malik said.