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Coronavirus scare: Medical students upset over hate hurled on doctors
Medical students, across India, are concerned about the recent attacks on doctors who are treating corona patients.
The medics have been at the forefront to serve the nation since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in India. Not just the Prime Minister, but most from Bollywood and even the sports world, have been praising their painstaking services. Time and again their videos and messages have surfaced on social media, asking everyone to follow social distancing. However, now, the medical residents (young doctors) have taken to social media to voice their anguish over the recent attacks on doctors — who are treating corona positive patients — that include being pelted with stones and even being spat on.
READ | Covid-19: Health workers attacked in cities, 7 held in Indore for pelting stones
“We are only trying to help. These incidents make me fearful for my future. I don’t want to be beaten up once I’m on the field serving patients,” says a second year undergraduate student of the University College of Medical Sciences, Delhi, and Dr Lokesh Raghav, an orthopaedics resident, currently pursuing post graduation from Lady Hardinge Medical College, adds, “How will the country survive if the soldiers ie the doctors who are fighting against the world’s common enemy (coronavirus) are beaten for keeping their everything at stake?”
Medical students from across India are concerned about this issue. A senior resident of Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research, Bengaluru, says, “In these tough times, motivation is one of the greatest weapons that we can use. And I feel perpetrators — who have attacked doctors — should be brought to justice so that the doctors have faith that the system backs them.”
Dr Nikita Garg, a junior resident at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research, Chandigarh, who is under self-isolation after tending to coronavirus patients, says, “What has happened is terrible! Doctors are fighting like soldiers in the current situation. Despite lack of personal protection equipment, we are doing all that we can. In my family, my mother is a heart patient and my grandfather has hypertension; they can even get this disease from me and I don’t know what will happen then. It’s time that everyone realises what doctors are doing for them. Please support us, stay in your homes, and do not harm us!”
Author tweets @fizzybuddha
