Doctors at Medical College Hospital and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Raipur joined nationwide protest over Kolkata hospital violence on Friday, giving the agitation a huge impetus and bringing health services in the hospitals of the capital city to a stalemate.
The junior doctors and medical students too joined the protest and boycotted the Out Patients Wards (OPDs), raising slogans to express solidarity with their protesting colleagues in Kolkata.
Several patients and their families were seen standing outside the Medical College Hospital and AIIMS in Raipur on Friday morning, waiting for the doctors to help them. Some said they have been told by the doctors to go somewhere else.
Meanwhile, a group of doctors under the banner of state unit of Indian Medical Association (IMA) and leadership of their state president Dr Anil Jain, general secretary Dr Asha Jain and Chairman Hospital Board, Dr Rakesh Gupta later in the evening handed over a memorandum to district collector, Raipur which was addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
IMA in its memorandum strongly condemned the brutal violence at the NRS medical college and announced that “the entire medical fraternity has expressed solidarity to the seriously injured doctors”.
IMA stated that “the organisation is ready for an agitation to press for strong legislation and strict action against hospital violence”.
In the memorandum the doctors stated “It has been observed that the increase in violence will adversely affect the public health at large. Not only the patients undergoing the treatment in the institution facing violence will be directly affected but also there are a lot of indirect consequences. Institutions will be reluctant to take up complicated and risky patients which will affect public health at large. Threat of violence increases the stress levels of health care workers. Sound judgment regarding patient care will be compromised in such situations.”
As a part of protest, medical students and junior doctors in Medical College Hospital as well as at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMMS) were on strike and the Out Patients Departments (OPDs) were closed down.
