Patient care hit as PMCH junior doctors, nurses spar

Patna: Healthcare services at Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH) were disrupted on Tuesday after around 300 nurses from the morning and night shifts went on strike over the alleged physical and verbal assault of a senior staff nurse and her family by junior postgraduate doctors.

Routine patient care suffered with medicines and injections delayed in several wards and scheduled surgeries postponed before the nurses resumed work following requests from patients and assurances from the superintendent.Bithika Biswas, secretary of the Bihar A Grade Nurses’ Association and a senior member of the PMCH Nurses’ Union, said the nurses continued their protest from 8am to 5pm before calling it off in view of patients’ hardship.

“We continued the protest, but upon repeated requests from patients’ relatives and the superintendent, we decided to call it off because several patients were facing problems without our services,” she said.The protest followed an alleged assault on senior staff nurse Lakshmi Kumari and her family on Monday after the death of her husband, who was undergoing treatment at PMCH. Nurses alleged a junior PG doctor assaulted Lakshmi and also confined and beat her relatives after an altercation.

The allegation was denied by the doctors.Bithika said the superintendent informed the protesters a special committee had been constituted on the directions of the health department to investigate the incident and submit its report within 10 days. “Our only demand is cancellation of the registration of the doctors who assaulted our nurse and her family,” she said.Another nurse, Soni Singh, said incidents of nurses being abused or slapped by doctors, particularly postgraduate residents, were not uncommon.Rejecting the allegations, PMCH Junior Doctors’ Association president Dr Satyam Kumar said doctors made every effort to save Lakshmi’s husband, who died due to multi-organ failure, sepsis and an unknown cause of poisoning, and not because of negligence. He denied any junior doctor assaulted the nurse or her family.Meanwhile, the Junior Doctors’ Association began an indefinite strike from 11am, suspending OPD, general ward and elective operation theatre services while continuing emergency and other life-saving services.PMCH principal Dr Geeta Sinha said, “No good can come from disruption of public healthcare services. We have constituted a resolution committee and are hopeful of resolving the issues soon.”Hospital sources said several surgeries were deferred, while relatives alleged patients waited for hours for medicines and nursing care. “We were told the surgery could not be performed because of the strike,” said Sunita Kumari, whose daughter was awaiting surgery.