Second Day of SBMCH Strike
Interns force senior docs to stop outdoor services
Patients coming from far and nearby places of Barisal town had to return without treatment as the interns at Barisal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College and Hospital continued their indefinite strike for the second day yesterday.Photo: STAR
Patients' sufferings mounted as interns at Barisal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital (SBMCH) continued indefinite strike for the second day yesterday protesting assault on interns by attendants of a female patient who died at the hospital Wednesday morning. The agitators also forced the senior doctors to close outdoor services at the hospital soon after it started at 9:00am yesterday. The interns also burnt tyres and newspapers, held procession and chanted slogans in 'protest' against publishing reports about the sufferings of patients due to the strike. The number of admitted patients in the 500-bed hospital was 1289 on yesterday morning but over one hundred patients left the hospital as medical services and different other facilities remained suspended there due to the strike, SBMCH sources said. Barisal City Corporation Mayor and city Awami League convener Shawkat Hossain Hiron visited the hospital yesterday morning, assured legal action against the assaulters and requested the interns to withdraw the strike on humanitarian grounds. The SBMCH authorities, who formed a two-member probe committee and lodged a case in connection with the incident, urged the interns to withdraw their strike, but to no effect, said Ferdous Ahmed Shibir, director of SBMCH. "We have vowed to continue the strike as safety and security of the on-duty doctors was not assured. We suspect that police will not investigate the case properly as the assaulters were led by Mamunur Rashid, a constable of Rangamati police station, also son of the deceased," said Mehedi Hasan, president of SBMCH Interne Doctors Association. Shaheduzzaman, officer-in-charge of the Kotwali police station, said, "We received the case, lodged by SBMCH director, on charge of creating obstacle to performing public duty and assaulting government staff on duty. As name of any accused was not mentioned in the case, it will take time to arrest the attackers after investigation." Karimunnesa Bibi, 60, was admitted to the Women's Medicine Ward 3 at the hospital at 2:20am on Wednesday after suffering a brain stoke, and she died there at 6:30am. Alleging negligence in treatment, the patient's attendants physically assaulted Tanmoy Barua, the on-duty doctor at the ward, and Mehedi Hassan, the interne doctors' leader at the hospital. After the incident, the interns brought out processions on the hospital campus, held a protest rally and suspended all medical services at the hospital from 8:00am Wednesday.
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