The police staff posted exterior the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Gandhi hospital, the place members of the family of a Covid-19 affected person attacked a health care provider yesterday — left half-hour earlier than their shift was to return to an finish, with out ready for his or her colleagues to alleviate them and take over — which gave the attackers a free run, a number of eye-witness accounts recommend.

The lone personal safety guard who tried to defend the Duty Medical Officer from the assault, was locked inside the toilet (together with the physician) by the 2 attackers, who created a ruckus after their member of the family died of Covid-19 final night.

Eye witnesses and hospital sources informed Deccan Chronicle that bother was within the offing on the ICU as attendants of a number of sufferers had been making common makes an attempt to get contained in the ward. Some would get meals and medicines for the sufferers whereas others mentioned they needed to take the sufferers to the bathroom as they had been unable to take action on their very own.

Many attendants usually complained of the poor amenities within the ward and argued that there was nobody to deal with the sufferers wants. This was the rationale why a lot of them usually  demanded entry to the ward in order that they might deal with their ailing members of the family.

But for the hospital authorities and the policemen alike, the highest precedence was to forestall attendants from going inside as a lot of the aged sufferers within the ICU had been Covid-19 constructive.

”Over the previous couple of days, the policemen on obligation on the ICU ensured that no attendant was in a position to get inside as there was strict monitoring. Even the entry gate was locked and solely the medical workers had entry,” sources mentioned. But the growing variety of sufferers and lack of medical consideration was consistently bothering the attendants.   

Policemen posted in several wards together with the ICU work in three shifts — 6 a.m to 2 p.m is the primary shift, 2 p.m to eight p.m is the second whereas the third shift is from 8 p.m to six a.m.

Eye-witnesses mentioned that it was round 7.30 p.m when the 2 police Constables and one Sub-inspector of police who had been current there since 2 p.m., had been no the place to be seen within the ward. ”They left with out ready for his or her colleagues within the subsequent shift to reach and relieve them, which might have occurred at 8 p.m.,” they mentioned.

Some quarter-hour after the policemen left, all hell broke unfastened following the dying of the 55-year-old man. Emotionally charged and hurling abuses, his kin picked up a stool, a chair and threw it on the docs and nurses and attacked them after barging contained in the ward.

It was solely after frantic calls to the superiors within the hospital that policemen current elsewhere within the premises had been requested to hurry to the ICU, situated on the third flooring of the emergency block. By the time they reached, the harm was completed. ”Had the police staff been current on the time, the assault may have been thwarted or handled successfully,” eye-witnesses mentioned, describing the attackers as being in a ”very foul temper.”

end-of