Patients at Dhaka Medical College Hospital suffered acutely on Sunday as the hospital physicians and staff members suspended services protesting at attacks on them on Saturday evening.
The admitted patients as well as new patients who went to the hospital even for emergency services went back without services as the physicians, nurses and other staffers observed work abstention demanding safety in their workplace.
The protesting doctors said that a road traffic accident patient died in the hospital on Saturday.
Following the death, a group of 50/60 youths attacked the hospital staffers, including doctors and nurses, leaving and at least 15 of聽 them injured, they said.
Several patients were seen lying on the floor of the hospital waiting for healthcare at around 12:30pm while many urgent patients went back from the hospital鈥檚 emergency gate seeing the strike.
Manjurul Shafi, an attendant of Afroja Akter, 50, who was admitted to the hospital on August 26 for a gall bladder surgery due to stones there, said that the patient was not getting any services.
鈥楧octors are scheduled to conduct a surgery today but nobody has come to us till 12:30pm,鈥� Manjur, a student of Dhaka College and hailed from Sirajganj, said.
Manjur said that the woman was a migrant worker in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who came home for this treatment.
Ataur Rahman went to the hospital from Madaripur with severe pain in head.
No doctors, however, attended him even in four hours as he was waiting in front of the emergency gate of the hospital.
On Sunday noon, DMCH physicians at a media briefing announced a complete shutdown of healthcare services at all public hospitals across the country.
He said that the shutdown would continue until their safety in hospitals was ensured.
The doctors after a meeting with the health adviser Nurjahan Begum and others at the DMCH, however, relaxed their strike.
The physicians said that the hospitals would continue emergency services, admission, surgery, ICU and HDU services, among others, for next 48-hour and asked the authorities to arrest attackers who attacked the doctors and staff at Dhaka Medical College Hospital on Saturday.
The health adviser Nurjahan condemned the attack as a heinous act and assured the doctors of arresting all those involved within 24 hours saying that nobody would be spared.
DMCH office assistant Amir Hossain, meanwhile, filed a case with the Shahbagh police station over the attack on the doctors at the DMCH accusing four named and 50 unnamed people.
Shahbagh police station sub-inspector Abdul Kuddus said that no one was arrested in the case till 8:45pm.
Although the doctors announced their strike across the country, no impact of it on healthcare, however, was noticed at other hospitals in the capital as well as in districts.