Attack on medico: Doctors at Gandhi hospital want more security 

HYDERABAD: After a doctor was attacked at the Gandhi Hospital’s Acute Medical Care Unit (AMCU), questions are being raised as to why the deployment of the special Telangana State Special Police Force (TSSPF) was not beefed up.

Last December, a GO mandated the deployment of the TSSPF at all government hospitals, but the implementation continues to be on paper, junior doctors alleged. “Every time a doctor is attacked, a few policemen are sent to the hospital for two days and then they go back,” a junior doctor protesting outside the hospital said. 

The incident, which was reported on Tuesday night, is the second attack on a doctor on Covid duty at the Gandhi Hospital in three months.

Currently, only the in-patient block, where the wards are, have adequate police presence. The AMC building, where most of the critical and ICU patients are admitted, does not have any security.

This makes it unsafe for the doctors and other staff to discharge their duties. The doctors claim that they made several requests for additional security force, but in vain.

This is now one of the key demands of the Junior Doctors Association. Meanwhile, it is learnt that the Hyderabad city police needs to assess the security situation and a requisition in this regard is to be given to the TSSPF, after which the force can be deployed.

This bureaucratic hassle has left a lacuna in the system. “We have provided around 70 personnel. If there is a need for more, we can increase it. The personnel work in three shifts of 24 guards each,” a senior official said. Till then,  its a tough road ahead for the doctors. “Slander and abuse are common. Patients are alone and since the staff is limited, they verbally abuse us,” a junior doctor from the pulmonology department said.