Doctors ‘abused’ at RML Hospital

New Delhi: Resident doctors of the government-run Dr Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital in the national capital were allegedly abused by relatives of a patient after his scheduled surgery was postponed by the institution at the last minute.

The Central government hospital has filed a complaint with the North Avenue police station following the ruckus on Saturday.

“An FIR has been lodged and investigations are underway. Nobody has been arrested yet,” a senior police official said.

A senior doctor said the planned surgery of the patient was postponed as he was stable and another patient, who was in serious condition, had to be operated immediately. So, the doctor said, “We counselled the patient”.

“(But) a mob of 20 to 30 people gathered in the ward and abused the resident doctors present there and also threatened them. Had the guards and the bouncers not intervened, the doctors would have been beaten. By the time the police reached the hospital, the people gathered there had dispersed,” he said.

In wake of the rising assaults on doctors, the Delhi government had earlier ordered that whenever any instance of assault on the doctors is reported, an institutional FIR will be lodged by the hospital.

At least five government hospitals had gone on strike after a woman patient and her attendant physically assaulted a resident doctor on duty at Delhi-run Maharishi Valmiki Hospital on November 19.