Date:15/12/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/12/15/stories/2007121562181200.htm

National

Two doctors beaten up in Andhra Pradesh

House surgeon sustains head injury; doctors boycott duty

HYDERABAD: Just a day after the junior doctors called off their 11-day-old strike in Government hospitals in Andhra Pradesh following assurance of adequate protection, two doctors in the Government Maternity Hospital at Nayapul were beaten up by persons suspected to be MIM workers and the relatives of a woman who died in the hospital on Friday.

The Friday attack prompted the already agitated junior doctors to call for a boycott of duties in the hospital, except the emergencies.

The medicos staged a sit-in on the road in front of the hospital, holding up traffic for over an hour, before being arrested.

The death of Zakira Begum, an undertrial prisoner who was pregnant, led to the attack around noon.

Even as her relatives began arguing with the staff, a group of MIM workers led by Charminar MLA Ahmed Pasha Quadri arrived there.

Accusing the staff of being negligent, they went on the rampage attacking the doctors and destroying furniture as the hospital neither had any security staff nor police protection.

The hospital authorities denied the negligence charge stating Zakira died of ‘amniotic embolism’, an irreversible condition following the baby’s death in the womb.

A woman relative of the undertrial prisoner relentlessly assaulted a hapless house surgeon Kamakshi even as video cameramen filmed the attack. Hospital RMO Dr. M. Hymavathi too bore the brunt of the mob fury. Dr. Kamakshi sustained a head injury.

As tension escalated and the strike appeared to spread to other institutions, the Government rushed Medical Education Minister Galla Aruna Kumari to the hospital. Security at Government hospitals had become a serious issue after the attack on doctors of Niloufer hospital on December 2, leading to a strike by junior doctors.