Doctors at emergency wards seek security

Karam Prakash
Tribune News Service
Patiala, March 15

After a doctor was caught in a brawl between two groups of patients and sustained a bullet injury in Amritsar, questions are being raised over the security of doctors at emergency wards.

In the wake of the unsafe environment, Emergency Medical Officers (EMOs) say that they have developed a sense of fear due to the frequent incidents of violence at emergency wards.

Condemning the incident at Amritsar, EMO Sukhwinder Singh, posted at Samana Civil Hospital, said, “There is no safety for EMOs at Civil Hospitals across the state.”

“There is no security guard at the emergency ward. Sometimes around 30 people accompany a patient and situation becomes very scary. We don’t feel safe at all. Quite often we have to call police to handle the relatives of patients,” said Dr Sukhwinder Singh.

Experts opined that the EMOs at the civil hospitals were at higher risk as no provisions have been made to deploy Punjab Police personnel there.

Not even single security guard is deployed at a majority of civil hospitals across the state, they said.

During the emergency duties, EMOs are the ones who issue Medical Legal Report. Along with this, EMOs have to conduct post mortem as well.

Another EMO, who didn’t want to be named, said, “How can we perform our duties with a constant sense of fear? Already we are in stress of performing our duties, and this fear of violence adds to our burden.”

Dr Jagpalinder Singh, SMO, Rajpura Civil Hospital, said, “We have deployed two private security guards for the night after incidents of violence a few years ago. I strongly believe a police post should be there at all the civil hospitals.”

Meanwhile, Dr Nidhi Bansal, president, IMA, Patiala, said, “We demand secure environment to work freely at all the hospitals and strict punishment for the culprits.”