Despite assurances of security, attacks on doctors repeat at Hyderabad's Gandhi hospital

Junior doctors on agitation on Wednesday following assault of one of them on Tuesday by relatives of a COVID-19 dead person

Despite assurances from the state’s health minister, top police chief, attacks on doctors are repeating at the state-run Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad – the nodal hospital for COVID-19 treatment in Telangana.

Junior doctors are on agitation at the hospital since Tuesday(June 9) night demanding that “such attacks be prevented immediately.” They are agitated after a patient’s attendants attacked one of them, after learning about their kin's death.

According to the doctor who was assaulted, the patient was in critical condition for two days and on a ventilator. “Two attendants, to our surprise, came up and confirming the death, started attacking us with chairs. An iron stool has hit me. The female staff saved themselves by locking themselves in a room. I was alone and no one responded to my calls. There was not even one policeman.”

On Wednesday (June 10) morning, the city police deployed to control the protests barricaded the hospital gates in an attempt to prevent the doctors from coming out in a rally.

After a scuffle, the doctors came out and sat on the main road in protest. Holding placards, they raised slogans “wanting justice” and that the “CM should visit the hospital and meet them.”

Since the onset of Covid-19 in the state on March 1 till Wednesday (June 10) when the state has recorded a total of 3,920 cases, chief minister Chandrasekhar Rao has never visited the hospital in the heart of the city.

“The conditions under which we are operating are really distressing. There is no safety or security for us,” a junior doctor told DH on the condition of anonymity.

Gandhi doctors were attacked by Covid-19 patients/relatives earlier too.

On April 1, a COVID-19 patient undergoing treatment in the hospital attacked the doctors, after learning about his elder brother’s death in the same COVID-19 treatment block.

Health minister Etela Rajender condemned the attack then, while DGP Mahender Reddy had promised strong action on the offenders and “beefed up security for the protection of all doctors and paramedics treating the Covid-19 patients 24x7.”

Hyderabad police commissioner Anjani Kumar had also visited the hospital to instill confidence among the staff. But doctors rued that they remain under threat even now after all such high-level reassurances.

On Wednesday, as the junior doctors demanded the CM’s visit to resolve their issues, minister Etela appealed to the doctors to stop demonstrations and asked their representatives to meet him at the State Secretariat for talks.