Mumbai: The Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) has condemned the attack on the 26-year-old resident doctor by relatives of a critically-ill patient at the civic-run Cooper Hospital on Sunday night. The patient, Yogendra Pandey, 33, succumbed while under treatment, which agitated the relatives. One of the relatives attempted to hit the resident doctor with a plastic stick attached to a broom while another relative slapped him several times.
The incident has again triggered a debate on security in public hospitals. MARD’s president, Dr. Lokeshkumar Chirwatkar, said security at most other hospitals was beefed up after their protests. “Cooper somehow never made it to the list as it did not have an active MARD body. We will be taking up the issue with the authorities,” said Dr. Chirwatkar.
In his statement to the Juhu police, the doctor, a second-year resident from Nair Hospital who was posted in Cooper, said he went to the male medicine ward on the sixth floor of the hospital at around 5 pm on Sunday. He then took Pandey’s history from the relatives and sent him for a CT scan.
“I accompanied the patient and relatives to the upper ground floor for the CT scan. I enquired at the counter and told the relatives that they will have to wait for 30 minutes and left to look at other patients,” the doctor said in his statement. While the CT scan report was normal, he suggested an MRI which again involved a 30-minute wait. After the MRI, the patient was brought back to the ward. At around 8.30 p.m., Pandey’s relatives rushed to the doctor to inform him that his condition was critical. “When I went to the ward, three doctors were already treating the patient and when he did not respond, one of the doctors declared him dead,” said the doctor. A few minutes later, the relatives assaulted him. Other doctors in the ward came to his rescue, and he was sent to a neighbouring room till relatives calmed down and police arrived. Two relatives were arrested in the case.
Doctors say the challenges in public hospitals are different these days due to overcrowding. “It is more important now for doctors to be cautious while communicating and expressing their concern and urgency through their body language,” said physician Dr. K.R. Dhebri. “The doctor-to-patient ratio is very low. Often, relatives ignore the symptoms and bring the patient to hospital very late. All this contributes to such attacks, which need to be curbed,” he said.
