By Matters India Reporter
Chennai, April 21, 2010: The president of the Tamil Nadu chapter of the Association of Healthcare Providers of India has condemned recurring incidents of violence on doctors and healthcare workers.
The immediate provocation for the condemnation was a mob preventing the burial of a prominent doctor who died on of Covid-19 on April 19 in Chennai, capital of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
Doctor S. Gurushankar, president of Tamil Nadu unit of the chapter, says denying burial is “the worst form of human indignity. How can we forget that he died in in the line of duty while saving these very people from the dreaded disease? He is a martyr in the true sense of the term.”
On April 20, police in Chennai arrested at least 20 people for allegedly attacking friends and family of Simon Hercules, a neurosurgeon, on April 19 night when they took his body to a burial ground.
One of his friends had to quietly bury him in the early hours of April 20 without any family members present.
The friend, Pradeep Kumar, an orthopedic, said Doctor Hercules “didn’t deserve this end.”
“He was not shown even basic humanity. Even his wife and son couldn’t be there to say goodbye,” Kumar told the News Minute website.
Police said the attackers lived near the burial ground and were worried that burying Covid-19 patients in the vicinity would spread the virus.
Gurushankar says despite being assaulted, abused, and even spat upon, doctors have maintained their composure and work tirelessly to save as many lives as possible.
“However, we do not expect such ignominy to fall upon our community in such dire times when all we are asking for is basic respect and that doctors and healthcare staff be allowed to discharge their duties,” the Chennai doctor says in a statement.
He also points out that doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers now battle Covid-19 without even basic protective gear and several of them have lost lives while selflessly doing their jobs.
Gurushankar says private hospitals that hardly earn anything now struggle to pay salaries. “Most hospitals are borrowing to pay salaries. Yet we are reaching out to all those in need of care, in this time of distress.”
He urges the public to at least acknowledge that doctors are risking their lives because of their sense of responsibility to society. “The call of our duty goes much beyond the money we make,” he asserts.
He pledged support to the Tamil Nadu chief minister’s efforts to eradicate Covid from the state. “However, the government too must take cognizance of all the hard work and long hours that doctors and all the medical staff are devoting to keep this pandemic in check.”
He says doctors and healthcare workers would lose their will and motivation if the government does not take strict against those attacking them. “Then it will be very tough to contain the pandemic,” he warns.