Docs stop work, demand safe environment in GMCs

Nagpur: After MBBS final year student Ashok Pal was killed in the GMCH Yavatmal campus, doctors across the state started agitations demanding safety measures for them in government medical colleges.
“This is unacceptable. We are 800 of us here and our lives are under threat. There is only one security guard here,” said Sagar Dole who heads the MBBS students association in Yavatmal.
“Ashok was a sincere, calm and studious person. He was brutally murdered in cold blood. The spot where the incident took place is among the dark areas of the campus. There is no CCTV too,” added Dole.
Doctors believe it was a preplanned murder. They told TOI that Pal had some issues with relatives of a patient in August. “If proper security was provided inside the campus, he would have been alive today,” said Dr Saket Mundhada, vice-president of the Central Committee of the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) who also heads MARD at GMCH Yavatmal.
MARD has taken up the matter with medical education minister Amit Deshmukh and the DMER chief Dr Dilip Mhaisekar. “Doctors face attacks by angry relatives every day. We demand immediate justice for Ashok and a safe and secure environment in all medical colleges,” said Dr Dnyaneshwar Dhobale, president of Central MARD.
The MBBS students and resident doctors locked all gates of the campus and raised slogans. They stopped working for almost entire Thursday. A candle march was taken out on Thursday evening. In-charge dean Dr MB Kamble offered to resign but it has not been accepted by the DMER yet.
That Deshmukh had not reacted till late on Thursday has disheartened the doctors. “Justice delayed is justice denied,” said one of the agitating doctors while speaking to TOI. The GMCs across the state are likely to intensify the agitation on Friday.
Sena neta threatens agitating doctors
Late on Thursday, the central committee of MARD released video footage of Yavatmal’s Shiv Sena neta Santosh Dhawale threatening them. He can be heard saying, “Will you leave the place or shall I call my men.”
“How can a student feel secure in a college campus when a politician threatens us in front of the collector and superintendent of police?” the tweet addressed to CM Uddhav Thackeray, deputy CM Ajit Pawar and home minister Dilip Walse Patil reads.
Dhawale had contested the MLA elections twice and lost. He became popular by helping poor patients at the GMCH. Dhawale was not available for comment.