1,700 All-India Institute of Medical Sciences doctors strike over assault

New Delhi: About 1,700 resident doctors of All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) decided to go on indefinite strike on Thursday evening after, they said, their complaint against a high-profile eye doctor at the premier hospital for physically assaulting a junior doctor was not being taken seriously.

All services apart from emergency services have been hit due to the doctors’ strike. All routine surgeries have been cancelled.

The doctors on strike are demanding that Dr Atul Kumar, chief of Rajendra Prasad Centre (RPC) for Ophthalmic Sciences, be suspended pending an inquiry. Dr Kumar allegedly slapped a senior resident doctor (name withheld on request) on Wednesday morning in front of patients and staff.

The resident doctor has, in his written complaint to the AIIMS director, said that Dr Kumar arrived early for rounds and got upset with the junior doctors for not being ready with patients’ documents.

“He got very angry and started shouting… My phone started ringing while he was scolding me so he tried to snatch my phone but I resisted. Then he slapped me, my spectacles fell off and I got blank for a minute (sic),” he has written.

The resident doctor left the centre and proceeded on previously sanctioned leave to his home in Nagpur. Dr Kumar, the resident doctor has written to the AIIMS director, apologised to him at least thrice saying he was “like my father”.

Though the resident doctor has accepted the apology, he has requested that he not be made to work with Dr Kumar. AIIMS has instituted a committee to inquire into the incident, but the resident doctors are refusing to call off their strike.