In this file photo, Dr Suleman Merchant, dean, Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, speaks with private security personnel.
In this file photo, Dr Suleman Merchant, dean, Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, speaks with private security personnel.
The Bombay high court on Friday reprimanded the state and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for not implementing court orders of providing adequate security to doctors. The court even suggested that the BMC consider using the services of private security agencies for its hospitals. “The BMC is the richest Municipal Corporation and there should not be any problem for it to get services of private security agencies, private hospitals do that,” observed the bench.
The division bench headed by Justice V.M. Kanade court made this suggestion after Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) through an affidavit informed that despite a court order of providing security to doctors in municipal corporation- and state-run hospitals, there have been four incidents of attacks over the past month. The affidavit alleged that the order of restriction of relatives to two is also not implemented. According to the doctors’ body, often a large number of relatives of patients gather in hospitals and this encourages relatives to attack doctors in case of a patient’s death.
The bench has asked the state and BMC to submit additional affidavits on working conditions and accommodations provided to doctors. The judges also said considering that doctors in government hospitals are made to work 24 hours a day, the payments made to them are also not up to the mark. The court has directed the government to submit additional affidavit by September 23.
Dr Sagar Mundada, the president of MARD, who was present in the court, said, “MARD is grateful to the court for taking up our issues so proactively.”
The court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by social activist Afak Mandaviya through advocate Datta Mane, raising the issue of serious problems faced by poor patients and their relatives during strikes called by resident doctors in BMC and government-run hospitals. According to the petitioner, generally poor people who do not have any means of getting treatment in private hospitals go to these hospitals and they face major problems and some even lose their lives during the strikes. During the hearing several other issues, including reasons behind doctors going on strike, were raised.
