Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 14

A woman doctor on a medical team treating coronavirus patients was allegedly assaulted by a patient in Delhi’s Lok Nayak Hospital---another incident in the growing number of such cases being reported during the health crisis.

The incident took place on Tuesday in the surgical block at 5:20 pm, according to the letter written by Resident Doctors Association of the hospital to the medical director of the hospital.

The letter said a patient started hurling verbal abuses and passed vulgar comments on a female resident doctor on duty. When objected upon by the accompanying doctor, the patient gathered a large number of other patients admitted in the ward and started threatening the doctors and staff on duty. The health care workers had to rush to the duty room and hide inside while all the time the patient with the mob tried to break open the door.

The letter highlights the lack of security to doctors on duty and asks for an urgent deployment of armed policemen in coronavirus wards, action against security officers as well as against the floor in charge.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain called the incident ‘indecent behaviour” and promised action.

The incident occurred on the same day when reports said a relative of a coronavirus patient assaulted a junior doctor in Hyderabad.

On April 1, a duty doctor and staff at Hyderabad’s Gandhi Hospital were allegedly attacked by a family member of a coronavirus patient who died during treatment.