Relatives assault doctor over patient’s death

In the sixth such incident in Maharashtra, the relatives of a patient bashed up a resident doctor from the city. The incident happened on Thursday when the relatives of a patient who died on Wednesday night beat up the resident doctor looking after the case in Sion Hospital.

An FIR has been filed against the assaulters. This is the first case of assault recorded against a doctor in Mumbai.

Nihar Desai, a first-year resident doctor was surrounded by a mob of 10-15 people when a patient suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy succumbed in the hospital. The doctor was held by his collar and slapped.

Shaken by the incident, the doctor has apparently switched his phone off. “We have been trying to contact him but are not able to get through to him,” said a resident doctor from the medicine department.

An FIR (66/16) has been filed at Sion police station under the Doctor’s Protection Act by senior inspector Sandeep Patil but so far no arrest has been made.

However, the student unions are blaming the lack of security measures as the reason that often makes doctors vulnerable to such assaults.

“Security personnel in majority of the hospitals are generally below standard and not trained well to handle a such a situation. They just add up to the numbers,” said Dr Sagar Mundada, president of Mard. “As far as security measures are concerned, a simple rule of ‘one patient, two relatives’ will go a long way in preventing assaults. It’s almost always that a mob gets out of control and adds to the chaos without knowing the ground reality,” he added.

Dr Mundada also said that the DMER had, in a letter dated July 3, stated that they would introduce the ‘One patient, two relatives’ measure. But nine months later, it has not happened yet.

The similar issue was highlighted in a story published in The Asian Age under the headline ‘Security issue: Unqualified staff guards hospitals’. It was revealed in the story that more than 90 per cent of the security guards appointed at three of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) run hospitals- Sion, Nair and KEM are unqualified for their posts.

Also, according to the audit report of BMC, the required strength of security is 220 but only 110 guards have been recruited despite the BMC having provided a contract of `95 crore to a private security agency Eagle security service.

Dr S. Merchant, the dean of the Sion Hospital said, “The doctor has been manhandled and abused but not brutally beaten. We are looking into the matter.”