Protests continued across the country with the AIIMS faculty association too going on strike; some private hospitals have allowed doctors to skip OPD
As the protests over the Kolkata rape torture and murder of a 31-year-old doctor continued, the director general of health services has issued an order saying hospital superintendents are expected to report any incident within the hospital premises within six hours.
Faculty members at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences New Delhi have decided to suspend routine hospital services today. They want a Central Protection Act to be implemented that will ensure safety of practising doctors. While services have largely remained unaffected in private hospitals many are reporting sporadic protests by doctors and at least one corporate hospital has informally told consultants that they can skip OPDs today.
The order issued by the Directorate General of Health Services makes no mention of the Kolkata incident and is largely generic in nature but comes in the wake of the CBI questioning the now removed principal of R G Kar Medical College Dr Sandip Ghose to probe allegations of lapses and cover up. There have been at least two instances of vandalism in the hospital since the incident, one which the hospital administration claimed was routine “planned” demolition work near the seminar hall where the incident happened.
“Recently it has been observed that violence has become common against doctors and other healthcare staff in government hospitals. A number of health workers suffer physical violence during the course of their day. Many are threatened or exposed to verbal aggression. Mostof this violence is done by either patients or patients’ attendants. In view of the above, it is states that in the event of any violence against any healthcare worker while on duty, the head of the institution shall be responsible for filing an institutional FIR within a maximum of six hours of the incident,” reads the office memorandum signed by DGHS Dr Atul Goel that was issued Friday.
According to the letter from the faculty association addressed to the director of the institute, in AIIMS only emergency medical services will be functional. No routineOPDs, laboratory services or surgeries will take place.
