Over 300 junior and post-graduate doctors at the Gandhi Hospital, the nodal facility for Covid-19 treatment in Telangana, held dharna today protesting against manhandling of their colleauge by kin of a patient on Tuesday night.
The protests, which began late on Tuesday night, continued on Wednesday morning, with the doctors refusing to resume work. Junior doctors from some other teaching hospitals too held demonstrations in Hyderabad and in Warangal in solidarity.
They forced their way out of the hospital and gathered on the main road, raising slogans demanding protection.
After a 55-year-old patient succumbed to the virus infection, his kin barged into the hospital and attacked a doctor, triggering the protest.
This is a second such attack on the doctors at the hospital in the last few weeks. The police had stepped up protection after the first incident.
Telangana Health Minister Eatala Rajender has called the protesting doctors for talks and requested them to resume work. However, the protestors refused to go to the Secretariat for talks, and the Minister has decided to meet them at the hospital to resolve the issue.
The doctors alleged that they have been working under hostile conditions without proper personal protection equipment and working over time to attend to the growing number of patients.
Covid update
Meanwhile, the State registered 178 new positive cases and six deaths on Tuesday. Of the new cases, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) registered 143 cases. There is a sharp rise in the cases in the last two weeks as about 1,400 persons tested positive. The number of deaths too has gone up to 148.
The total number of cases recorded in the State stood at 3,920, including 2,030 persons under treatment in various hospitals and in home quarantine.