RMCH interns go on strike after protest over death

Hours after a patient died allegedly of wrong treatment, interns of Rajshahi Medical College Hospital (RMCH) yesterday went on a strike demanding security as agitated relatives of the deceased gathered at the facility.
Asaduzzaman Asad, assistant secretary general of the city unit BNP, died around 9:00am, moments after he was injected with medicines prescribed by an intern, said police and relatives of the victim.
No doctor had attended the patient since he was admitted to the hospital on Friday around 11:00pm, alleged the relatives, adding that as Asad's condition deteriorated in the morning the intern administered him the injections.
The intern, however, fled when Asad's agitated relatives and party men started to show up at the hospital. Following this all the interns gathered in front of the RMCH director's office demanding security.
Meanwhile, deceased's wife Halima Begum made a verbal complaint to the RMCH director about her husband's death due to wrong treatment. The director also sat with the interns.
Physician Mahbubur Rahman of medicine department said Asad was admitted to the hospital in a critical condition and doctors could not save his life. He denied talking any details.
RMCH Director Brig Gen Muhammad Moinuddin also refused to talk on the incident.
After Asad's relative took his body home, the interns gathered at Charu Mama's canteen inside the hospital premises and tried to form a human chain. But police did not let it happen.
Security had been intensified in and around the hospital after the death of the patient. No journalists were let enter the hospital since morning.
The interns stopped working since 10:00am, said Rokonuddin, an assistant commissioner of Rajshahi Metropolitan Police.
In the afternoon, through an unsigned press release the interns said they had started observing the strike from 3:00pm to realise a four-point demand.
They wanted constant police deployment at three entrances and in front of admission wards, repair of ECG machine and telephone connections, supplies of emergency medicines, and visits to the wards in the evenings by an assistant professor or a doctor of the similar status.
While leaving the hospital in the evening, the RMCH director told reporters that he did not know why the interns went on strike. “We had talks and there was no situation for calling the strike,” he added.