National Protest Day by IMA: Kerala doctors take part

Thiruvananthapuram: Raising the slogan of 'Save the Survivors', doctors in Kerala on Friday took part in the nation-wide protest organised by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) against the recent assault on medicos in various states. The doctors, both in government and private sectors, organised standing protest in front of the Secretariat, the state administrative hub here, and in various district headquarters besides hospitals.

Doctors took part in the agitation holding placards in front of the Secretariat in the morning. IMA state president Dr P T Zacharias, state secretary Dr P Gopakumar and Kerala Government Medical Officers' Association (KGMOA) state president Dr G S Vijayakrishnan were among those who took part in the protest dharna organised in front of the General Hospital here.

Seeking to ensure that the protest was not affecting the normal functions of hospitals during the time of COVID-19, only five members took part in the agitations in each centre across the state, sources said. So, the protest did not affect the outpatient (OP) or any other services in the state hospitals, they said, adding that one of the major demands of medicos was to declare the hospitals as 'special protected zones'.

Meanwhile, local police have registered a case against a person, hailing from Menamkulam here, for allegedly threatening a private hospital doctor in the state capital during his duty on Thursday.

IMA, the apex medical body, had recently termed as "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 had demanded the implementation of the 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.

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