The Kerala police on Monday fast-tracked their inquiry into the death of a road accident victim, allegedly due to the denial of emergency trauma care at various private and government hospitals in Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam in early August.
Investigators led by C. Asokan, Assistant Commissioner, Kollam, and Circle Inspector, Kottiyam, interviewed doctors at two hospitals where the victim, Murugan of Tamil Nadu, was brought following an accident in Kollam on August 7.
The police will also subpoena government files and reports related to the incident. Murugan, who was in a state of comatose, was shuttled between hospitals in the two districts before he succumbed to his injuries in an ambulance.
The plight of the labourer from Tirunelveli had caused a huge uproar and cast hospitals in Kerala in a poor light.
It also threw the spotlight on the scanty trauma care facilities at hospitals and the general insensitivity towards poor patients. The police have registered a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 of the IPC. It carries a life sentence or up to 10 years of imprisonment. Officials said the police probe was focussed on whether the doctors had abetted the death of the patient by violating their professional oath to provide express treatment to the sick and injured.
Strike notice
The faculty members and postgraduate doctors of government medical colleges in the State issued strike notices to the Director of Medical Education (DME) and the authorities of medical colleges on Monday, following widespread speculation that the arrest of senior and junior residents, who were on duty the day Murugan was brought in to the casualty wing of the Thiruvananthapuram MCH, was imminent.
Though the Kerala Government Medical College Teachers’ Association (KGMCTA) and the Kerala Medical Postgraduates’ Association have not specified a date for the strike, they have made it clear that the faculty as well as resident doctors (postgraduate students) would go on a Statewide strike “the moment any police action is initiated against the resident doctors.”
