“Gandhigiri has its Limits” and “We are here to Serve not to Suffer”

Hyderabad: Trouble flared up at Hyderabad’s main COVID-19 treatment facility, the Gandhi Medical Hospital (GMH), on Wednesday with more than 300  junior doctors spilling out into the streets outside to protest last night’s attack on two of their fellow professionals by patient attendants.

Last evening, a 55-year-old coronavirus patient succumbed to the infection after which relatives of the patient allegedly assaulted junior doctors with an iron rod, the doctors alleged.

Doctors say that the deceased patient had high sugar and blood pressure levels due to which he succumbed. They said the family had been apprised of the patient’s deteriorating condition. Although the patient had been advised not to leave his bed, he was found lying unconscious near the toilet in the hospital. The doctors said the patient collapsed as he had flouted medical advice and strained his body. The doctors could not save him despite CPR.

“We don’t know how the two attendants got to know about it. They ran towards the patient, saw him collapsed, and ran towards us. They threw a plastic chair which broke upon hitting against my hand. Then they threw an iron stool. I evaded and it hit my hip,” said Dr Vikas.

The protest, which was staged within the hospital premises, was shifted to the main road of Musheerabad on Wednesday.

Though there was large scale discontent among them about workload, the way the pandemic is handled by the State government, the junior doctors expressed their demands aloud after the PG was attacked.