Mumbai: “I have heard about so many resident doctors being attacked. I had never imagined that I would be one of them one day,” said 28-year-old Rohit Kumar Tated, a first-year resident in medicine department of the civic-run Sion Hospital, who was assaulted by relatives of a patient late on Saturday.
Shaken, Dr. Tated has not returned to duty since. In his support, resident doctors across the State bunked work. “When they pounced on me, I simply bent down on my desk. At that moment, I thought that they are going to seriously injure me,” said Dr. Tated, who feels embarrassed to get back to work. “I don’t think I want to get back to work any time soon.”
Afflicted by polio, Dr. Tated was determined to prove to his family that he could work like any other person. After completing his MBBS in Raipur Medical College, he joined Lokmanya Tilak Hospital for a master’s degree in medicine. “I wanted to do something good for people like me,” he said, adding that the work pressure on resident doctors is so high that a few months after he joined, his leg caliper broke. “We are constantly at work. Emergency duty would go up to 30 hours at times,” said Dr. Tated, son of a businessman in Raipur.
According to Dr. Tated, the 60-year-old chronic kidney disease patient, Rekha Ghavari, who was brought to the hospital in an unconscious condition, was given timely treatment. “We immediately put her on dialysis as her chest was swollen with fluid retention. I also called for the intensive respiratory care unit doctor to see her, but before that her condition deteriorated. We gave her cardiopulmonary resuscitation but she succumbed.”
Ms. Ghavari was admitted to Sion Hospital for 17 days in February and her relatives had taken discharge against medical advice.
Her kidney function was so bad that she needed at least three dialysis every week. But she had not taken even one cycle of dialysis. When she was brought to the hospital on Saturday, she was extremely critical.
But when the news of her death was broken, a mob of at least 10 relatives barged into the ward no 20, where Ms. Ghavari was admitted, and attacked Dr. Tated. While the patient’s son was constantly in touch with the doctor, the mob had arrived when the patient became critical.
