Dead COVID-19 patient's kin attack doctor, Medicos stage protest demanding security

Hyderabad: Junior doctors at the state-run Gandhi hospital here continued their protest on Wednesday against the attack on a doctor allegedly by the kin of a COVID-19 patient who died, even as state Health Minister E Rajender invited the protestors for talks.

Two persons assaulted the doctor at the hospital late on Tuesday night and were arrested, police said. The junior doctors, who began their protest after the alleged attack, squatted on the road in front of the hospital and raised slogans condemning the incident. Many of them held placards that read, ‘We Want Justice,’ ‘We Condemn the Attack’, Increase Security and ‘Save Doctors’, among others.

A protesting doctor told reporters that a duty doctor was attacked by some attendants of a patient with a plastic chair after the patient collapsed and passed away in a washroom.

The patient could not be revived though resuscitation and the attendant attacked the doctor when the latter was explaining the situation to him, he alleged.

A metal chair was also thrown at the duty doctor, he said. The patient was not supposed to move out of the bed in view of his condition, he said. Attendants are usually not allowed for COVID-19 patients in the hospital, he said.

Appealing to the junior doctors to call off their protest, the health minister invited the representatives of the medicos to the Secretariat to discuss the issue. A case was registered under IPC sections and under relevant sections of the Epidemic Diseases Act and Telangana

Medicare Service Persons and Medicare Service Institutions Act 2008, police said.

“Under any circumstances, the attack on medical staff will not be tolerated and firm and legal action will be taken,” police said adding: “In this time, doctors are our frontline leaders.”