More than 1000 doctors staged a massive protest outside the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital on Thursday, after a house surgeon was allegedly assaulted by the relatives of a patient in the septic ward. The doctors also blocked roads during their agitation, demanding that the Hospital Protection Act be implemented for the safety of doctors.
Speaking to The News Minute, Dr Sampath Kumar, a doctor from Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital said, “In our septic ward, there was a student from Adhiparasakthi College who was admitted, alleging that he was assaulted by the institute. While he was in the ward, around 20 to 30 people came in to meet him, so our doctors told them that these many people cannot come to meet a patient. The doctors asked them to come one by one,” he said.
But this directive led to an argument between the hospital staff and the relatives, he said. “A woman pushed one of our post graduate medical students called Vinotha, for which our house surgeons went and questioned them. The mob then beat up one of the house surgeons, Ashutosh,” Dr Sampath said.
Angered by the incident, the doctors then started protesting at around 5pm, demanding protection from the relatives of patients.
“Around 7:30pm, the protest stopped, after the police promised that they will take action against the people who assaulted our house surgeon, and the Dean filed a complaint against the assaulters,” Dr Sampath said.
But the doctors say that they will continue to protest for the larger issue of safety, starting Friday. And not just the staff of the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital - even other doctors in the city are expected to join the protests.
“We want the people who assaulted the house surgeon under the Hospital Protection Act and the Health Minister should promise us that such incidents will not happen again,” Dr Sampath said.
Denying rumours that three people had died at the hospital due to the protests, Dr K Narayanasamy, the dean of the hospital told The New Indian Express that there were only two people admitted to the casualty ward, and that both of them were alive.
It wasn’t just doctors who protested on Thursday though. After one of the doctors pushed a media person while they were covering the frenzy, journalists also staged a protest against the doctors. Meanwhile, the relatives of patients at the hospital also staged an agitation, saying that the doctors were not giving proper treatment.