Kalyani, Feb. 04: Over 200 junior doctors, interns, and MBBS students attached to the College of Medicine and JNM Hospital in Kalyani staged a sit-in demonstration in front of the emergency section on Friday demanding a police outpost inside the hospital premises after a doctor was allegedly assaulted by the family of a patient who was being injured in an accident earlier in the morning.
The demonstration that continued for about seven hours from 10.30 am on a relay basis without disrupting the service was withdrawn only after the Nadia district administration assured to depute police personnel inside the hospital to ensure their security.
The protestors, who agreed to withdraw the demonstration on the basis of verbal assurance, however, issued two days deadline for its implementation, announcing that the fresh demonstration would b resume from Monday.
Meanwhile, police acting upon a complaint by the assaulted doctors began a case and arrested two relatives of the patient.
JNM Hospital
Salman Halder, a final ear MBBS student, and students’ union secretary said, “Doctors assaulted at the hospital on a number of times and the administration on every occasion verbally assured us for security arrangement set up a police campus to pacify us. But nothing has so far been done in reality. Today the SDO Kalyani assured us to deploy police personnel immediately and to ensure security. We on the basis of his assurance withdrew the demonstration temporarily. But, we would consider to resume it unless the assurances are fulfilled”.
Trouble broke out at about 10 am when Moinuddin Mondal, 28, a resident of Ghoragacha village of Kalyani brought to the emergency section of the hospital being injured in a road accident. However, the family members who were behaving restlessly abused the doctors in the emergency and assaulted one of the doctors who was stitching a would of the patient.
“Around a dozen of relatives of the patient entered inside the emergency and began threatening the doctors. The attending doctor protested the behavior, but he was beaten up”, an eyewitness doctor said.
Saifur Mondal, a relative of the patient, however, claimed that the relatives lost their cool only after an attending doctor slapped the patient since he was suffering in pain.
SDO Kalyani Hirak Mondal said, “I have talked to the protestors and assured to ensure security. Kalyani police authorities have been directed to deploy police personnel inside the hospital premise from Friday evening itself, particularly at all the entry points, and not to allow anybody without any valid pass or identity card”