BIDAR: A group of men brutally thrashed a doctor over an OPD slip and for writing a medico-legal case (MLC) at the emergency section of the Bidar Institute of Medical Sciences (BRIMS) hospital late on Thursday night. On Friday morning, doctors staged a protest following which the police arrested seven of the eight accused.
The victim, doctor Tukaram Bhalke, who was on night duty, had advised the friends of a patient to get and OPD slip and said treatment would follow after that. The group of ten men insisted that the patient, Vijay Singh, be treated without an OPD slip and also questioned why he had written for MLC. The gang brutally assaulted Dr Tukaram Bhalke.
The doctor, who was badly beaten, is being treated at BRIMS itself, and allegations have surfaced that the assault was carried out while the men were intoxicated. Even when the doctor fell down, and despite pleas from other doctors, the gang did not stop. They kicked him and beat him mercilessly before fleeing. He has since filed a complaint at the New Town police station.
Doctor Tukaram Bhalke said, “They said they won’t get an OPD slip and wanted treatment directly. They told me, ‘If you are writing for X-ray, then sit’. I said the slip from OPD must come to us. Then they brought the slip… I wrote for X-ray. We did not write for MLC… When they went for X-ray, the staff there told them an MLC was done. For that, they came to fight asking why I wrote for MLC. I argued that I did not do the MLC. I argued asking them to show who wrote it. At that time, they assaulted me on my face with equipment from the hospital”.
On Friday morning, over 500 doctors at BRIMS hospital stopped treatment at 10 am condemning the assault and held a massive protest. Due of this, poor patients who came from remote villages had to return without getting treatment. Despite requests by the BRIMS director and police, the doctors and medical students remained unmoved. This also led to verbal altercation between police and students.
The protesters were demanding that the DC and SP visit the spot. Additional SP Chandrakant Poojari assured them of providing security, but the protesters remained unmoved. Doctors called off the protest based on assurances from the police department, district administration, and BRIMS medical officers, among others.
Deputy SP Dada Peer Mulla said, “On Thursday night, when they came to BRIMS after falling from a bike, they assaulted a doctor over the MLC issue. We have already registered a case and arrested most of the accused and booked them under Section 307. We will deploy additional police so that doctors do not face any kind of problem in the future. We will also mandatorily conduct night rounds”.
