The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Patients left in the lurch

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 11, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Patients left in the lurch

Staff Reporter

Victoria Hospital junior doctors begin their indefinite strike

FOR SECURITY: Doctors staging a protest at the Victoria Hospital in Bangalore on Wednesday. — Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.

Bangalore: Patients at the Victoria Hospital on Wednesday were left in the lurch and many had to go back without receiving treatment.

Long queues of anxious patients waited in the corridors.

As junior doctors of Bangalore Medical College (BMC) launched an indefinite strike to protest against manhandling of a postgraduate medical student by a patient's husband who alleged sexual harassment of his wife on Tuesday, work in all hospitals that the BMC is affiliated to — Victoria Hospital, Vani Vilas Hospital, Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital, Minto Ophthalmic Hospital and Venkateshwara ENT Institute — was affected on Wednesday.

Nagaraj from Byatarayanapura could not have been in a worse situation. He was suffering from acute jaundice and his family took him to a private hospital for treatment.

The hospital directed them to Victoria Hospital saying that he was in the last stages of the disease.

Nagaraj died on the way and his body was seen lying on a stretcher outside the Out Patient Department gate with no one to attend to it.

The working of most departments but casualty and emergency services was affected by the protest.

Adamant

But the doctors are adamant and say they will not budge till their demands are met by the Government.

"We want security. We are at the receiving end and almost everyday we face the ire of the patients, some of whom come through the influence of some Minister or the other," the doctors said.

On Tuesday, Dr. Krishnamurthy, who was attending to patients in the OPD, was reportedly slapped by the husband of a patient, who alleged that he had misbehaved with her while doing a check up.

Dr. Krishnamurthy said he had examined the woman in the presence of a nurse and a female house surgeon.

He has filed a complaint with the Victoria Hospital police station.

Demands

The junior doctors have demanded that the Government enhance the stipend for postgraduate students and house surgeons.

They have said that laboratory facilities and hostel facilities, which are in a pathetic state, should be improved. "We are underpaid and overstressed. The Government has to intervene in this matter," Junior Doctors Association president Venugopal, said.

Turned away

The scene was similar in Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital. S. Thimappa, a 37-year-old, who came to x-ray a broken hand, was turned away from the department in spite of a group of house surgeons sitting outside the department.

"We will conduct an x-ray only in cases of emergency. You can come back tomorrow or go to some other hospital," the house surgeons were heard saying. "The OPD was run with regular staff and the OT worked as on today. I do not know how things will go tomorrow," Dr. P. Chandrashekhar, Chief Medical Officer and acting Medical Superintendent of the hospital, said.

Response

V.S. Acharya, Minister for Medical Education, said the junior doctors had made a representation to him for increase in stipend 10 days ago and the Government was looking into it. "But they should not have clubbed that with this issue. I have told the Director and Principal Secretary for Medical Education to look into the matter and to see that the strike is called off immediately," he said.

Victoria Hospital, which has bed strength of 964, receives around 1,200 out-patients and has an average of 55 new admissions everyday while Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital, which has 686 beds, receives around 700 new outpatients every day.

Vani Vilas Hospital gets around 200 outpatients and around 70 new patients are admitted everyday.

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