Doctors at Delhi's LNJP Hospital go on strike over alleged assault on medical student, demand more security

New Delhi: Doctors at the Delhi government-run LNJP Hospital went on a strike on Monday over an alleged assault on a postgraduate medical student by a patient’s attendant demanding adequate security, officials said. [caption id=“attachment_6954491” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Lok Nayak Hospital, Delhi. News18.[/caption] As part of the strike, which started in the morning, both regular and emergencies services are currently shut, affecting patients at the biggest Delhi government-run hospital, the medical superintendent Dr Kishore Singh said. The Resident Doctors’ Association of the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) Hospital has claimed that the stir has been triggered by an alleged assault on a third-year student of Maulana Azad Medical College, who was on duty last night in the emergency department around 11 pm. Their main demand is augmenting of security deployment, including having marshalls in the emergency department, Dr Singh said. “A patient was brought to the ER department and later died of some complications. An attendant then assaulted a person on duty, who is a third-year student of MD at the college,” Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA) president Saiket Jena alleged. “In the last few days, several such incidents of attack on doctors have taken place in the hospital premises. So, we have gone on a strike,” he said. Resident doctors of AIIMS and Safdarjung Hospital have expressed solidarity with their colleagues at LNJP Hospital. The AIIMS Resident Doctors’ Association urged Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the health minister to intervene in the matter and address the security concerns of the doctors. Meanwhile, RDA representatives and hospital authorities met Delhi Health Secretary Sanjeev Khirwar in the afternoon, he said. The RDA president claimed that “the immediate demand of deploying marshall in emergency department of the hospital has been agreed upon by authorities,” adding, “they will deployed today”. “But, we have other demands as well, like installation of CCTV cameras in regular wards as well, so the strike is still on,” Jena said. The incident comes days after two junior doctors at NRS Hospital in Kolkata were assaulted allegedly by the relatives of a patient who died at the hospital. Junior doctors in West Bengal went on a strike following the incident over lack of security at the workplace.