PATNA: Dr Bhudeo Singh, who died to due to beating in Gopalganj jail, was under threat from a group of inmates.
Reports filtering from the Gopalganj jail said that a group of inmates had been pressing Dr Singh to give certificates to them on feigned illness to facilitate their shifting to another jail, which the doctor refused.
On Sunday, one of the inmates made a false alarm call that a prisoner had fallen ill, whereby the doctor rushed to attend to him, and in turn, was beaten mercilessly that left him bruised, bleeding and severely injured. He, later, was rushed to the Sadar Hospital in the Gopalganj town, but the doctors referred him to the Patna Medical College and Hospital in view of the nature of his injuries, and in the process, died in the way be-fore getting any emergency care and treatment.
The incident, which hit the front-page headlines in newspapers and also the news channels, was an utter embarrassment for the government, since the two-day meeting of the Planning Commission to assess the needs and demands of the eastern zone states to frame its own plan and policy per-spectives had started at Patna on Monday.
However, the IMA and BSHSA were quick to react and respond to the eventual death of Dr Singh with a tinge of bitterness, since their long-pending demands regarding security to doctors and their units or estab-lishments both in the government hospitals and at private clinics, as well as at Nursing Homes, over and above their demand regarding payment of non-practicing allowance (NPA), provision of adequate number of doctors and improved infrastructure in government hospitals, has not yet been met.
The BSHSA doctors in Gopalganj district have already gone on protest strike on Monday, said organization s state general secretary Dr Ajay Kumar.
State IMA secretary Dr Ashok Kumar Yadav said, The anger and frustration of the doctors with the prevailing situation is genuine. The government is announcing new schemes, but paying no attention to in-creasing the number of doctors or improving the infrastructure. Their anger, as Dr Ajay said, stems from the fact that Dr Singh was beaten up on government premises, with jail officials and staff around. Normally, the police are against doctors.
Whenever they are assaulted by anti-social ele-ments, they take the side of criminals. It is the regular experience all over the state, he said.