india

Updated: Jul 01, 2019 14:19 IST

Hundreds of patients were affected on Monday as the strike called by doctors of north Delhi’s Hindu Rao Hospital entered the second day as they demanded better security at work.

Services at the state-run Hindu Rao Hospital were affected on Monday after 500 doctors and medical interns skipped work, the second time this year, after their colleagues were allegedly attacked by the relatives of a patient, who died on Sunday.

“Junior doctors of Hindu Rao Hospital are on mass leave until they are given proper security. Today, they did not conduct OPDs and have threatened to stop emergency services during the day,” the vice-president of the Resident Doctors’ Association Dr Piyush Singh said.

“The junior doctors association, however, clarified that senior doctors (senior consultants) may work if they want,” Dr Singh said.

The association said that around 70 to 80 relatives of the patient who died at 1am on Sunday assaulted the staff. Junior doctor Rajesh Kumar suffered severe head injuries during the scuffle and an intern was also treated for external injuries and discharged later, it said.

“Regarding Saturday night’s incident, when the relatives of a patient vandalised the hospital and thrashed our doctors, only an FIR on behalf of two injured doctors has been lodged,” Dr Sanjeev Choudhary, RDA’s general secretary, said.

“We want an institutional FIR to be filed by the hospital. Besides, we want professional bouncers to be deployed here and a police PCR to be stationed at the hospital permanently,” Dr Choudhary added.

Ranjan Kumar, who brought his wife to the OPD at the Hindu Rao Hospital in the morning, said they have not been attended by any doctor.

“We came here at 6am to avoid queues but are yet to be seen by a doctor. We hear that there is a strike of the doctors and many are sloganeering inside,” Kumar said.

In May, the resident doctors had protested for nearly a week alleging that they were not paid their salaries for three months.

Last month, doctors in West Bengal went on a strike for a week after family members of a patient, who died, assaulted their colleagues at the government-run Nil Ratan Sarkar (NRS) Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata. Doctors in other parts of the country also joined the protest in solidarity with the junior doctors at NRS.

The strike was called off after West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee assured them of improved hospital security.