Disappointed over the death of a family member, a group of people chased and physically attacked a doctor in Telangana. The incident took place on Tuesday night in Nizam’s Institute of Medical Science, Hyderabad (NIMS).
According to doctors, the incident took place around 9.40 pm after doctors had declared that they couldn’t save the patient, 46-year-old Aruna who had been suffering from a respiratory problem.
Aruna, a resident of Uppal, was admitted in NIMS four days ago after having previously been treated in a private hospital. “Her health continued to deteriorate and the respiration problem persisted in spite of a lung transplant,” said Dr Srinivasan, former President of the Junior Doctors’ Association.
He further stated that the agitated relatives of the patients couldn’t contain their emotions and attacked his colleague, Dr Irfan, a resident doctor from the Department of Rheumatology.
On duty Resident doctor at NIMS hospital chased and attacked by relatives of a patient, died while undergoing treatment on Tuesday night. Incident triggered protests from doctors association demanding safety and arrest of accused. #Hyderabad pic.twitter.com/i7SVDZcBXf
— Aashish (@Ashi_IndiaToday) May 30, 2018
“The patient was struggling with a chronic illness. She had breathing difficulties. After the private hospitals gave up on her, we tried our best to save her, but couldn’t,” he said.
Condemning the attack, he said that the relatives of patients should apologize, “We can understand their emotions, but they can’t direct their angst at us. We cannot work in such hostile conditions.”
Srinivasan also demanded that the government should provide security to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.
The Junior Doctors’ Association also held protests in the hospital on Tuesday night after the attack which extended well into Wednesday morning which were stopped after the Director of the Hospital and police assured of legal action against the perpetrators.
Police have registered a case against five people who attacked the doctor.
Speaking to TNM, Sub-Inspector D Srikanth Goud said that they have filed cases under IPC section 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 331(voluntarily causing grievous hurt to extort confession), 448 (punishment for house-trespass) and also under section 4 of Telangana Medico legal services and Medico Act.