Doctor assaulted by patient, his relatives in Mumbai hospital

All India Democratic Women`s Association members stage a protest demanding justice for the Kolkata rape-murder victim, in Mumbai on Saturday. Pic/PTI

A resident doctor at Mumbai's Sion Hospital was allegedly assaulted by a patient and his relatives early on Sunday. The incident comes amid the nationwide protests by doctors following the brutal rape and murder of a 31-year-old postgraduate trainee in Kolkata's RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9.

It has been alleged that the accused and his relatives were in an inebriated state.

Speaking about the incident, Dr Akshya More, general secretary of Sion-MARD (Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors) and BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation)-MARD, said, "The patient arrived in casualty after midnight in an intoxicated state with seven-eight relatives. He was involved in an assault before he came to the hospital, and had injury marks on his face. Owing to his injuries, he was given an ENT (ear, nose, throat) reference around 3:30 am. Our on-call resident doctor in the ENT department was a female. Following a routine procedure, she undressed the wounds to examine them. That is when the patient started verbally abusing her. The relatives, instead of controlling the patient, started verbally abusing the resident doctor. Things escalated to physical assault very quickly. The nurses intervened, but by then the doctor had sustained abrasions on her hands. By the time security was called, the patient and the relatives had fled. Such incidents are very frequent, and mostly go unreported, but we could not let this one slide, especially after what happened in Kolkata."

Resident doctors across the country are protesting in government hospitals following the Kolkata rape-murder incident, demanding better safety for the members of the medical fraternity. However, the attacks on doctors have not ceased. On Friday, the house surgeons of a Coimbatore hospital protested outside the dean's office after a molestation attempt on their colleague in the hostel premises.

Earlier this week, a nurse working in an Uttarakhand hospital was found raped and murdered in a village in Uttar Pradesh.

(With ANI inputs)