Hindu Rao Hospital doctors threaten strike over attack

Services at the Hindu Rao Hospital may be affected on Monday after 500 doctors and medical interns said they would strike work protesting an attack on their colleagues by relatives of a patient who died Sunday.

This would be the second time that the hospital will see protests this year. In May, the resident doctors had protested for nearly a week alleging that they were not paid their salaries for three months.

On Monday, services at the out-patient departments, the emergency department and scheduled operations may be affected at the hospital, run by the north Delhi municipal corporation. At time of going to press, no other doctors’ association had announced a similar protest.

The Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA) of the hospital on Sunday issued a press statement after three doctors and two nursing staff, including females, were allegedly assaulted.

The association said that around 70-80 relatives of a patient who died at 1 am on Sunday assaulted the staff. During the scuffle, junior doctor Rajesh Kumar suffered severe head injuries and had to be admitted at the hospital itself, while an intern was also treated for external injuries and discharged later, it said.

DCP (North) Nupur Prasad confirmed the incident and said, “An FIR has been registered on the complaint of the security-in-charge at Hindu Rao Hospital, on behalf of the two doctors who sustained injuries. We are investigating it.”

Regarding Sunday’s incident north body commissioner Varsha Joshi, said, “The violence is inexcusable. We are talking to our doctors to see how we can help them and prevent them from striking work. We will provide them all help possible.”

Dr Sanjeev Choudhary, general secretary, RDA, said, “This is not the first time this has happened. We have demanded better security at the hospital previously as well, but since the corporation has no money to even pay our salaries, one can imagine if they can at all afford us any protection from such incidents.”

First Published: Jul 01, 2019 04:10 IST