Vijayawada: The relatives of a patient attacked doctors at the Government General Hospital here, following which junior doctors got together and were ready to clash with them. The stand-off lasted for four hours.
It all started when two accident survivors, Nageswara Rao and G. Yohanu, were brought to the hospital at 11.40 pm. Soon, 20 of their relatives along with YSRC ex-corporator Pallem Ravi Kumar entered the causalty ward. When the doctors asked them to leave, the mob abused them in foul language, attacked them and locked the causalty ward.
On learning of the attack, all duty doctors in the hospital and those in the nearby Siddhartha Medical College reached there and staged a protest. During this time, Ravi Kumar and his associates reportedly roughed up two junior doctors. Hospital superintendent P. Nancharaiah reached the spot and the mob tried to attack him. The situation was later defused, sources said.
Speaking to this newspaper, Dr R. Hemanth and Dr N. Vankanna said the mob had created terror and threatened duty doctors and locked the casualty about 15 minutes.
A woman doctor was on duty at the time of the attack. The doctors demanded an increase in security to prevent attacks from those accompanying patients.
