Rohit Shishodia
Around 450 resident doctors have halted non-essential services at the Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS), Banaras Hindu University, Uttar Pradesh, in view of a brutal assault on two junior doctors when they were taking rounds to see patients in special wards in the institute on November 3, 2019.

Dr Jaideep Damor, Junior Resident, IMS, told DTMT: “Around four to five men rushed to the wards shouting and pointing towards one of the doctors that he was responsible for non-provision of bed to a relative in the Coronary Care Unit (CCU).”

Dr Damor said “They first snatched the stethoscopes from the doctors and hit them with the stethoscopes. They hit so violently that the stethoscopes broke. This led to severe injuries to the doctors. The men then picked up bricks and hit Dr Vikas Maurya, whom they blamed for not providing the bed in the CCU to their patient. This caused bleeding from the doctor’s right ear and led to ear perforation.”

Dr Damor added that the assault on doctors was related to an incident that took place four days earlier. A 62-year-old patient was brought to the emergency. The patient had a heart attack two days earlier. After assessing the condition, the patient was referred to the cardio ward.

“But his relatives demanded to shift him to the CCU where no bed was available. The patient required no urgent intervention at that time. Relatives continued to persist with doctors for shifting the patient to the CCU. They continued to argue with doctors and said that they would bring a bed from their homes but the patient should be shifted to the CCU,” explained Dr Damor.   

“The patient was later shifted to the CCU. He is still admitted and stable right now. But this heated argument with doctors over the provision or non-provision of bed did not go down well with the relatives of the patient and they vented their anger on doctors,”  he added.

“Three of the five assaulters have been identified through CCTV footage. But police is yet to take action against them. This is causing insecurity among doctors. If no action is taken against them, we would halt all essential services including ICU, CCU, OTs and emergency,” said Dr Damor.