Law student Prothoma Dutta Roy has written to the chief justice of the Gauhati High Court to take suo moto cognizance of the recent brutal attack on a doctor in Hojai by attendants of a Covid-19 positive patient.
She pleaded with the chief justice Gauhati High Court to either take suo moto cognizance or consider and convert her letter to a public interest litigation, whichever deemed fit.
The doctor Seuj Kumar Senapati, who had been on duty in a Covid care hospital in Hojai on June 1 was brutally thrashed by the attendants of a patient who had died there.
Roy is a final year law student of the Symbiosis Law School and hails from Silchar in Assam’s Cachar district.
The law student through her letter tried to bring into notice the rising incidents of assaults against doctors not just in Assam, but also in different parts of India.
Also read: Assam: Junior doctors of Jorhat Medical College and Hospital protest against assault on Hojai doctor
She said in her letter that although police had arrested those involved in attacking Senapati, there was no way to guarantee that such attacks on doctors would not take part in the future.
Allowing such attacks on doctors and other medical staff, who are working tirelessly to save the lives of patients are unacceptable, the letter said.
Roy said that although the Protection of Medicare Service Persons and Medicare Service Institutions (Prevention of Violence and Damage to Property) Act has been passed by about 19 states in the country, it is yet to be implemented effectively.
As such there is need of urgent stringent measures to protect medical personnel who are the main warriors fighting the Covid-19 virus during the ongoing pandemic.
“I humbly request Your Lordship’s interference in this matter, which is of utmost importance because if such cruel behaviour against the doctors continue it will hinder the entire healthcare service of our nation as well as question the dignity and morality of our society,” the letter quoted the student as saying.
If the doctors refuse to provide their services because of such attacks during the ongoing pandemic, the country will definitely suffer in the form of increasing death rate among patients testing positive for Covid-19.
Roy requested the chief justice of the Gauhati High Court and other judges to intervene into the matter without delay by taking suo moto cognizance into the matter.