A patient's relative allegedly intimidated and assaulted resident doctors, including one female doctor, at the Kalawati Saran Children's Hospital in Delhi's Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC) on Wednesday, 18 May. Following this, LHMC resident doctors announced a strike.
In a letter to the director of the LHMC and Associated Hospitals, the Resident Doctor's Association said they are withdrawing from all services, routine as well as emergency, from 9 am onwards on Thursday, 19 May, until their demands were met.
The Resident Doctor's Association now wants an institutional FIR to be filed with the arrest of all culprits with immediate effect. They are also demanding registration of a case under the Delhi Medicare Service Personnel and Medicare Service Institutions (Prevention of violence and damage to property) Act, 2008.
The association wants the appointment of separate bouncers for each high risk and vulnerable areas, the formation of a Quick Response Team with immediate effect and strict implementation of one patient-one relative protocol in hospitals.
Tagging Health Minister Mansukh Mandviya and Home Minister Amit Shah on Twitter, the Federation of Resident Doctors' Association (FORDA) India later condemned the alleged attack on the on-duty doctors and demanded stringent action against the culprits.
The Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA) had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April over incidents of harassment and violence against doctors.
Recently, the suicide of a lady doctor – Archna Sharma – in Rajasthan's Dausa district, who was accused of murder after one of her patients died, sent shock waves across the state and triggered protests even in the national capital.
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