The Hindu : New Delhi News : Flash strike at DDU over death

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Friday, Apr 20, 2007
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New Delhi

Flash strike at DDU over death

Staff Reporter

ANXIOUS WAIT: Patients and their relatives at the gate of Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital in New Delhi on Thursday after the Hospital doctors and other staff went on strike. Photo: V. V. Krishnan

NEW DELHI: Resident doctors, nurses and Group C and D employees of Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Hospital in the Capital went on a flash strike on Thursday morning after relatives of an eight-month-old child who died in the hospital went on the rampage.

The child's family members allegedly broke windowpanes and some hospital equipment in the Paediatric Department.

The strike, which was called off in the evening, brought medical services at the hospital to a standstill for hours with the patients being at the receiving end.

According to the child's father Indera Pratab, a resident of Delhi's Tilak Nagar's jhuggi-jhompri colony, his son had been admitted to the hospital with high fever nearly a week ago.

"Last night his condition deteriorated. When we asked the nurse on duty for a doctor she told us that the child was fine and that he only needed to be given oxygen. We were refused a doctor and my child died at around 5-30 a.m."

Following the death, over a dozen relatives of the patient threatened the medical staff in the children's ward, said a hospital official.

"Relatives of patients beating up or threatening doctors has become a matter of routine and this is the third time in four months that we have been forced to go on strike," said DDU Hospital Resident Doctors' Association president Pankaj Sabharwal.

He added, "We are demanding more security. We also want the private security agency out of the hospital premises, as they don't offer adequate protection. We are demanding that ex-Army security personnel be brought in and that the number of guards allocated to the hospital be increased with immediate effect."

Representatives of the medical staff on strike also met health officials of the Delhi Government who assured them that their demands would be looked into.

DDU Hospital Medical Superintendent Avneendra Prasad said: "We have looked into the demands of the medical staff on strike and assured them that adequate security will be provided to them. They came back to work in the evening. Care was taken to cause the least inconvenience to patients."

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