On-duty doctor suffers head injury after attack by deceased infant's kin at MGM Medical College

Jamshedpur: In yet another incidence of violence against medical professionals, the medical staff including doctors and nurses of the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College and Hospital (MCMMCH) held a strike on Tuesday in response to a recent incident of physical assault on a doctor after a 4-year-old girl succumbed to death.

The incident happened on Monday night when chaos erupted at the hospital, and members of the deceased child's family began beating the doctor, who was sanctioned in the Neuro Acute Care Unit (NACU) ward.

The father of the girl, a resident of Dev Nagar in the Sitaramdera police station area, admitted his four-year-old daughter to the hospital on Monday. Unfortunately, she died during treatment and the family members were heartbroken. Angered over the incident, they blamed the doctor for alleged negligence in their daughter's treatment.

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In response to the incident, the family members decided to confront the doctor. Therefore, they entered the doctor's chamber at 1 a.m. on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday, created a ruckus and physically assaulted him. While the doctor was getting beaten up badly, some hospital staff intervened and controlled the situation but it was late. The doctor suffered head injuries from the incident.

Following this, the outraged medical community protested against the incident at the hospital. Demanding strong action against the family members, the protesters which included doctors, nurses, hospital and medical staff condemned the incident and held a strike in front of the hospital superintendent’s office.

All the doctors of MGM Hospital stopped their work due to the incident except emergency services. All were sitting on an indefinite strike pleading for the safety of medical professionals in the workplace and justice for the doctor. As a result of the strike, non-urgent treatments and surgeries had to be postponed at the hospital.

Regarding this incident, the victim's doctor informed Aaj Tak, "We have tried our best to save the girl, we were constantly informing the family members about the condition of the girl. In the end, the child died during the treatment, after which the family members beat us at night. On the other hand, other doctors said that this kind of incident cannot be tolerated, we need security and nothing else."

However, the strike was called off and the protesting doctors continued addressing the patients after sub-divisional officer (SDO) Piyush Sinha assured them that the miscreants would be under arrest within 24 hours, Avenue Mail reports.

A meeting was held with the doctors, where SDO Sinha said, "The administration would take immediate action to address the security issues. Furthermore, a dedicated team of law enforcement officers would be assigned to investigate the assault case with a mandate to identify and apprehend the assailants within the next 24 hours."

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