Demanding better security in hospital premises, the members of the Resident Doctors Association of the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital (LNJP) held a protest on Thursday. The protest came following the alleged assault of a female doctor by a patient’s relatives on Wednesday night.
The protests escalated as Delhi health minister A.K. Walia reached the spot to inaugurate a newly-built OPD block of the hospital. Agitated doctors demanded the medical superintendent’s and the HOD (Medicine)’s resignation citing that they did not meet the victim for 16 hours following the incident. They also placed their demands before the minister and demanded strict action against the culprits.
Resident Doctors’ Association president Azeesh Shankaran said the minister has asked the hospital administration to make adequate security arrangements on the campus.
“Such incidents are not new. Even last year, an intern was beaten up by the patient’s relative and a post-graduate doctor became the victim of the same a year before that. CCTV cameras were installed after that but they remain dysfunctional. No one from the senior staff has even bothered to meet the victim after the incident,” said one of the doctors.
The doctors said the strike will not be called off unless their grievances are addressed.
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LSR faculty against autonomy
AGE CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI, SEPT. 19
The faculty members of Lady Shri Ram College, in its formal statement on Thursday, strongly opposed the grant of autonomous status to the college by the ministry of human resources development.
Some faculty members of LSR have signed a representation expressing their opposition to the grant of any kind of autonomy to the college and addressed a letter to the chairperson of UGC. ‘We expressed our deep reservation, in fact downright opposition to the idea of Lady Shri Ram College becoming an autonomous institution (academically or in any other way) from the Delhi University. We would like to add that we are not prepared either as teachers, or institutionally for the switch-over to autonomy. Since an educational institution is not co-terminus with its administration but is inclusive of its teaching and non-teaching members, any move that changes the existing status of the institution should, you would agree, have the consent of all or at least a majority of its faculty and other staff,” the panel said in a letter.