The Indian Medical Association (IMA) will hold a protest on June 18 against assault on doctors, with the slogan ‘Save the saviours’. This comes days after the apex medical body had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his personal intervention in ensuring ‘optimum milieu’ for medical professionals so that they can work without any fear.
Citing incidents of doctors and other healthcare professionals being assaulted by the family members and relatives of patients, the IMA, in a statement, asked all its state and local branches across the country to observe the protest by wearing black badges, masks, ribbons, shirts and running an awareness campaign against violence targeting healthcare professionals. However, no hospital will be closed, it said.
The IMA said press conferences will also be organised and they will also meet local NGOs and voluntary service leaders.
It termed “extremely disturbing” a series of violence against doctors in the last two weeks in Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and other places.
It demanded the implementation of central hospital and Health Care Professionals Protection Act with IPC and Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), standardisation and augmentation of security in each hospital, and declaring hospitals as protected zones among others.