Around 50 doctors at the Government General and Chest Hospital, Erragadda, boycotted elective duties for six hours on Monday in protest against an attack on their colleague the previous day.
They resumed duty after hospital superintendent Mahaboob Khan assured to improve security measures.
Second year post graduate student Krishnan Namboothiri E. on Sunday alleged that six attendants of a 52-year-old patient, suspected to be suffering from COVID-19, attacked him. They were provoked when he asked the patient what medicines she was taking for hypertension, Dr Krishnan said, adding that the attendants told him that he was supposed to know better.
“I asked him (the attendant) to leave when he shouted. He came back with at least five more people and all of them started to interrogate me. I remained silent and started to walk out. They dragged me outside the ward, tore my mask, slapped me, and hit on my ribs. I fell down. Two ward boys pushed the attendants away,” Dr Krishnan had said on Sunday.
On Monday morning, the junior doctors and senior residents boycotted elective duties and staged a protest outside the main gate. After the superintendent intervened, they shifted the protest to the hospital campus. Slogans demanding justice, a complaint to police from the hospital administration and a ban on ‘VIP culture’ were raised by the protestors.
“Our demands include releasing of CCTV footage to police to speed up the legal process, deployment of Special Protection Force (SPF) at the hospital, bringing all wards under electronic surveillance and recruitment of more counsellors to explain the medical condition of a patient to attendants,” said Sameena, a PG student.
President of Telangana Junior Doctors Association (TJUDA)-Osmania Unit P. Rahul said the boycott was called off as an FIR has been filed and they have received a written assurance from the superintendent assuring better security measures at the hospital.