Ahmedabad: Resident doctor at cancer hospital ‘attacked’, three held

Police said Dr Ashok Singh, a first-year resident doctor, was allegedly attacked by one Akhilesh Pandey alias Bunty (27), a resident of Chamanpura. He was accompanied by two other men identified as Gordhanbhai Jaiswal (32) and Arvindbhai Shekhawat (23). They had come to the hospital, run by Gujarat Cancer Research Institute (GCRI), Wednesday night with a woman suffering from breast cancer.

All the three men have been booked under Section 332 of the Indian Penal Code for voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from performing duty. The doctors have alleged that all the accused were drunk when the incident occurred.

Shahibaug police inspector K K Desai, who is investigating the case, denied that police have been slow in reacting to the call from the hospital. Showing a GPS report on his mobile, he said,”The call was received at 12.40 am and police reached the place of incident at 12.58 am.”

On the demand to add attempt to murder charge against the accused, Desai said,” The injuries suffered by the doctor are on palms and not on any vital parts. So the charge is not possible. We have sent the blood samples of the accused for alcohol test for confirmation.”

Giving details of the incident, Dr Itesh Khatwani, a resident doctor, said, “The patient was brought to the hospital at around 12.30 am. She was in the fourth stage breast cancer and bleeding from her breasts. When the duty doctor Dr Ashok Singh was attending to the patient, one of the attendants who was apparently drunk started filming the doctor and the patient. He also started arguing with the doctor. This led to heated arguments during which one of them took out a sharp weapon and attacked him. Dr Singh tried to defend himself and suffered injuries to his palms. When the security guard tried to intervene the assailant tried to attack him also. When we called for security he fled from the scene.”

After the incident the resident doctors of the hospital went on a strike and submitted a 12-point demand to hospital director Dr R K Vyas. Alleging that the issue of security to doctors have not been looked into by the authorities, Dr Shruti Gohil, another resident doctor, said, “ This is the third incident of assault on doctors in the city in the past one month. We have demanded armed guards at the hospital to thwart such incidents. We have also demanded that only one or two attendants be allowed with one patient. We had raised these points with the authorities after the last incident at Ahmedabad civil hospital when a lady doctor was assaulted by the attendants of a patient. No action has been taken till now.”

Dr Vyas told The Indian Express, “We have spoken with the resident doctors. We are planning to have armed guards at required places so that such incidents do not happen again. Regarding the, FIR we are consulting legal experts and will be deciding soon.”