Postgraduate medicos at the Government Medical College Hospital here, who have been protesting strongly against the alleged police inaction in arresting the person accused of attacking their woman colleague while she was on duty on Wednesday, have decided to intensify their agitation.
Following their 12-hour strike on Friday at the Thiruvananthapuram MCH, when all resident doctors stayed away from duty in outpatient and in-patient clinics, the protests were taken to government medical colleges across the State on Saturday.
In a symbolic protest against the violence they had to put up with at the workplace, all faculty, medicos, and even the nursing staff came for work donning helmets on Saturday. Doctors attended OP clinics with face-covering helmets.
Candlelight protest
In the evening, medicos and other professional associations of doctors held a candlelight protest inside the Thiruvananthapuram MCH. Doctors said that the police and the authorities seemed to take a lenient view of the physical assaults they were up against at their workplaces. They were also peeved that it was mostly in public sector hospitals that people dared to take law into their own hands and assault doctors.
Attacks on healthcare workers are on the rise in the State and even though a strong law, Kerala Healthcare Service Persons and Healthcare Service Institutions (Prevention of Violence and Damage to Property) Act, 2012, is in place to prevent violence against doctors and hospitals, the Act is being rendered useless by the soft- pedalling approach of the police and the local politicians. The PG resident doctor on duty in the neurosurgery ICU at the MCH was attacked, when she informed a man about the death of his wife, who was being treated for brain tumour.
Meanwhile, media reports said that the family of the accused had alleged that the case against the accused was fabricated and that he had moved court for anticipatory bail.
