Bengaluru docs show solidarity with Bengal counterparts

Resident doctors and members of various doctors’ associations went on a protest in the city on Friday expressing solidarity with their counterparts in West Bengal who are demonstrating after an assault on some of them.

Resident doctors and house surgeons of the Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute went on a protest, shouting slogans on the Victoria Hospital premises.

Although services remained largely unaffected, the doctors who were on rounds at the wards shouted slogans and raised demands for better protection and safety by the government.

Most of them wore bandages stained in blood ink on their forehead and hands to symbolically condemn the attack on junior doctors in Kolkata. “Though we have not been victims of physical assault, we are at the receiving end of abuse from patients’ families almost every day. There is a need to create awareness on the issue,” said one of the protesters.

He said there should be stringent norms to ensure doctors’ safety. “If a politician gets a small scar or if a cricket match is washed out by rain, there is so much of an outcry. The social media will be full of hashtags. And here we are, doing 36-hour shifts when need be, and yet, there is no one to care for us,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Indian Medical Association, Bengaluru Branch, has written to the Union government seeking stringent punishment in cases of assault on doctors.

“Currently, the maximum punishment for attack is three years. This is bailable. We want a seven-year term on bailable arrest to be the punishment for such assaults on doctors,” said Dr N Dhanpal, president, IMA, Bengaluru. The Indian Medical Association has also asked for a central legislation in the form of a special law against violence on doctors and healthcare establishments.

Monday strike

No out patients or casual walk-ins will be attended to on June 17, Monday, as hospitals in the city are likely to remain shut with doctors going on a strike.

Karnataka doctors will express solidarity with those who were attacked in West Bengal and join hands with thousands of other doctors across the country. Dr Dhanpal said most of the hospitals will keep their doors open for emergencies, but doctors won’t attend to OPD cases on Monday as a mark of protest.