SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Nov. 18: Repeated incidents of teasing at the Shahid Nirmal Mahto Medical College Hospital (SNMMCH) Dhanbad, has put the district administration in the dock. Four female patients have been assaulted in five months so far.
Though all the accused were duly arrested after the incidents, patients of the female ward feel unsafe as there is no sign of abating.
On Thursday, two persons were arrested for assaulting two patients in the female ward. After an alarm was raised by the victims, nurses and attendants of other patients nabbed both the accused on the spot. Internal security helped in arresting the accused. A police official said both the accused were in an intoxicated condition.
Hospital superintendent, Dr AK Barnbal said that it is a matter of probe how they entered the female ward.
Medical college’s official sources said that despite repeated sexual assault cases, the district administration has been sitting on the safety proposal of hospital authority for a long time.
After the rape of a mentally challenged woman on the hospital roof by an ambulance driver in July and an assault attempt with the attendant of a patient in the orthopedic ward in August, the hospital authority had given a proposal to the district administration for checking crime inside the hospital. But even after four months, the administration is yet to take any decision on that proposal.
At present, the administration of all five medical colleges of the state including SNMMCH Dhanbad is under the district administration. In the wake of the Corona pandemic, the state government in March had assigned administrative power of MGMMCH Jamshedpur, SNMMCH Dhanbad, Palamu, Dumka and Hazaribagh medical college to the concerned districts’ deputy commissioners.
After the state government’s notification, the then deputy commissioner of Dhanbad, Umashankar Singh had made ADM (law and order) Chandan Kumar the nodal officer of SNMMCH for monitoring administration of the medical college. After the transfer of Chandan Kumar from the district, Kumar Tarachandra (IAS) is the current ADM.
Dr AK Barnbal said that the hospital management had given a proposal of one entry point in the hospital, a pass system for entering the ward, and one patient one attendant formula to check untoward incidents.
