Karnataka resident doctors seek legal cell to fight assault cases

BENGALURU: Citing over 12 incidents of assault on health workers in the past 8-10 months, the Karnataka Association of Resident Doctors (KARD) has written to Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa demanding the setting up of a state-level legal cell within three weeks for fighting cases of assault. The association said that since the past few years, the greatest hurdle in penalising the culprits has been that the resident doctors or health workers did not have legal back-up to fight cases. The incidents are usually followed by protests, registration of FIRs and bail for the accused, they said.

“Formation of a state-level legal cell and its presence at the district-level too is the need of the hour. The increasing number of cases of assault on doctors is a serious threat to our basic fundamental ‘right to safety’. Any threat to our right to safety and right to discharge our duties will not be tolerated,” wrote Dr Dayanand Sagar, president, KARD.They listed out an ‘assault registry’, which includes 12 cases from hospitals in Gadag, Belagavi, Koppal, Kalaburagi, Mysuru, Mandya, Bengaluru, Hubballi and Vijayanagara.

One of them is an incident from July 22, 2020, where a mob of 100 people vandalised the Belgaum Institute of Medical Sciences Hospital and premises, and set an ambulance on fire when a patient succumbed to Covid-19. In a similar incident at the Gadag Institute of Medical Sciences, a patient’s attenders assaulted anyone in PPE, including interns and post-graduates, threw case papers, when an influential person passed away.