Unique protest: Doctor in a Nagaon hospital examine patients with stick in hand for self-defense

June 4: The barbaric assault of Dr Seuj Kumar Senapati at Udali Covid Care Centre (CCC) in Hojai, Assam has sent a chill of horror throughout the country. Though the state government acted promptly and nabbed around 24 persons involved with the crime, yet the incident left a deep scar in the minds of the healthcare professionals. The death of a Covid patient in a Hojai hospital angered their relatives to such an extent, that the junior doctor was ruthlessly assaulted by them.

However, this is not an isolated incident. After this Hojai incident, 4 persons were arrested by Cachar Police when they misbehaved with the medical team when they went to do Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) in Kalain Tea Garden area. In another such incident, a doctor in Hailakandi Civil Hospital, Dr Gaurab Bhattacharya, had filed an FIR alleging assault by family members of a COVID patient, who died soon after he was brought to the hospital. Finally, Hailakandi Police nabbed two persons on 4 June in this connection.

So far, several cases have been reported across the country about the violence on doctors in the midst of the pandemic. Even the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has taken strong note of such incidents of manhandling doctors and other healthcare professionals.

These incidents have led to a unique method of protest by a doctor in Assam. Dr. Diganta Bora, a surgeon at the Bhogeswari Phukoni Civil Hospital in Nagaon district of Assam was seen examining patients and writing prescriptions sitting on a chair holding a stick in his hand. The picture of the doctor with a stick on one hand and a pen on the other soon became viral in social media.

Dr. Diganta Bora told the media that the stick was not for beating the patients. This was rather his unique way of protest for the incident when a young doctor was physically assaulted by the patients’ relatives in Hojai. The doctor also expressed the view that in his medical career, he too has faced many unpleasant situations where the kin and kith of the patients misbehaved with him. He urged upon the public in general to understand the role of doctors and to emphatically judge their profession.