The Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association (FORDA) India on Thursday wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, seeking his intervention to halt the rise in the number of assaults on doctors across the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The letter comes after reports of repeated assaults on medical staff from across the country, the most recent being the attack on two women doctors from Safdarjung Hospitalon Wednesday night. The doctors are now demanding that a quick response team should be formed to respond to such incidents in residential areas. The group also demanded that such “inhumane acts of violence” should be made a non-bailable offence.
Tough time
“...The medical staff is in the first line of our battle against the virus. We are dealing with patients directly. We are battling this out, staying away from our families, working with rationed personal protection equipment and gearing up to an expected surge in cases. At this time, if we are attacked for working in the hospitals, the staff will have a tough time,” said Safdarjung Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA) president Manish.
“All medical staff are under tremendous mental and physical strain but the public should remember that they are trained to handle a pandemic situation...,” he added.
AIIMS RDA has been demanding better allocation of PPEs.
It said, “The government should not expect medical staff to go into battle with their hands tied at the back. We are with the government in this time of need but safety of all should be made a priority.”
Meanwhile, the FORDA, in its letter said even policemen were assaulting doctors and that the accused should be given immediate punishment. “We have an incident from AIIMS Bhopal where two resident doctors were assaulted by policemen even after showing their ID cards... These are not isolated incidents, rather parts of the long chain of violence against doctors...”
Stating that Central Protection Act for Doctors, as demanded earlier, is the need of the hour, the FORDA has now said this will work well for protection of the whole medical fraternity. “The medical fraternity stands together in the national response against COVID-9. Doctors and other healthcare professionals are putting in their best efforts in this fight. However, some unfortunate incidents of violence against frontline warriors are being regularly reported from across the country even in these testing times. We had reported about such incidents are taking place in various States of the nation earlier in our letter as well,” FORDA wrote.
A member of RDA said: “Acts of violence against medical staff demotivates us as a community...”
