Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 18: Deputy Commissioner, Rajouri Shabir Ahmed Bhat today suspended a lady doctor (Gynaecologist ) for negligence, resulting into the death of a young pregnant woman in District Hospital, Rajouri last night and directed the police to register an FIR against her and also constituted a Special Investigation Team ( SIT) to probe the matter and fix responsibility on the accused employees while entire hospital staff today went on strike and launched protest dharna in the hospital complex.The trouble in District Hospital Rajouri erupted at around 10.15 pm on Friday, after 23-year old Shazia Kouser, wife of Ehsan Mirza, resident of Badoon village near Rajouri, died in hospital for want of immediate treatment. According to family, the woman was in advance stage of pregnancy and was brought to hospital after she complained of pains at around 7.30 pm. The Casualty Medical Officer on duty sent call to lady doctor, Dr Rakia Parveen to report immediately but she did not turn up on the plea that no Ambulance was sent to her from hospital. But the woman kept struggling for life and finally died at around 9.20 pm in the Emergency unit of the hospital. Within an hour, the relatives of the patient and villagers arrived in the hospital. They were full of anger against the doctors and other staff and started strong protest. Many attendants of the patients admitted in hospital also joined them and the angry mob then resorted to stone pelting and also smashed window panes of the building, broken Operation Theatre, Emergency unit and Lab as well. The police party led by SHO, Ajay Singh Chib and DySP Headquarters rushed there. The hospital staff however, escaped for life to apprehend good thrashing by violent people. The angry mob tried to set on fire the hospital building but the timely intervention of police prevented them to do so. The people were shouting slogans against Health Minister Bali Bhagat, Director Health Services Jammu and District Hospital Administration. They demanded immediate registration of FIR against doctor, her arrest and holding of high level inquiry. They alleged that most of the doctors do not attend their duty and they remain busy in private clinics. There is no check on doctors posted at Rajouri hospital. Only one doctor is always seen during night hours for running emergency, look after wards and also discharge duty at OT if needed. No free medicines are provided from the hospital as claimed by Health Minister in Assembly and also through wider publicity by the Department. . The people demanded that all the local doctors be posted outside the district as they are least bothered about the patients’ here. The people continued their protest along with dead body up to 1 midnight and demanded that a case of double murder be registered against the doctors. Then DC Shabir Bhat and SSP Suleman Choudhary assured to hold probe and register an FIR besides and suspension of doctor. Today, the Police registered an FIR No. 75/ 2017 under Section 304 RPC against the lady doctor and DC Rajouri Shabir Ahmed Bhat placed her under suspension. He also directed for postmortem of body by a joint medical team and constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) led by Additional DC, A S Chib, assisted by DyCMO Rajouri Anis Altaf Nabi and a Gynaecologist from Sunderbani hospital, Dr Meena Sharma . The team will submit report within one week. Meanwhile, entire hospital staff of Rajouri including doctors went on strike at 10 am today and sat on dharna. The patients remained unattended in the emergency, wards and the OPD up to 2 pm. They were demanding registration of FIR against people involved in damaging hospital during last night and also security for the staff at hospital. Later, ACR Rajouri Paramjeet Singh and DySP headquarters went to hospital and assured security at hospital. With the intervention of SSP later, a counter FIR No 76/ 2017 was also lodged in this connection. SSP Rajouri Suleman Choudhary and DC Shabir Bhat also later visited hospital and assessed the damage caused to the hospital property by angry mob. The SIT has started investigation into the matter. There is strong anger among the people at Rajouri against the Medical authorities and the local civil society has demanded shifting of entire local staff/ doctors from Rajouri to the other districts like Udhampur, Doda, Kishtwar, Ramban and placement of outsiders, improvement in condition and also keep strict check on the activities/ attendance of the doctors and other staff of hospital.
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