Representative image showing a doctor writing prescription.
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A mentally-challenged person attacked a psychiatrist at Chennai's Government Stanley Hospital on Wednesday when the doctor was visiting patients in the outpatient ward. The attack came just hours after a doctor was brutally stabbed at another hospital in the city.
49-year-old Dr P Hariharan who works as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Stanley was attending to patients when he got into an argument with S Bharath who then attacked the doctor and fled the site, as per a report in The Times of India.
Police initiated a probe into the matter after the hospital's principal Balaji filed a complaint at the Washermenpet police station.
The 24-year-old attacker had reportedly been going through a treatment at same hospital last year.
A few hours back, a medical oncologist at the Kalaignar Centenary Super Speciality Hospital in Chennai was stabbed atleast seven times on Wednesday by the son of a patient allegedly over grievances regarding the treatment of his mother at the same facility, a hospital official said.
The 26-year old man assaulted the doctor inside the outpatient room during a conversation regarding his mother's treatment.
He was immediately apprehended by the hospital staff and handed over to the police, and he was arrested.
The doctor (53) is being treated, and he is stable, the official said.
The attack led to an outrage and doctors and nurses gathered in front of the hospital entrance to mark their protest.
"We do not have safety while doing our duty," one of the protesting KCSSH doctors said.
The victim, Balaji Jagannathan, is a renowned oncologist and is serving as an associate professor in the medical oncology department in the hospital.
The official, an emergency medicine anesthesiologist, told reporters: "He (Vignesh) closed the OP room (from inside) and stabbed the doctor in his neck, behind his ear, chest, forehead, on his back, head and stomach. There was huge blood loss. He is a heart patient and has undergone surgery for his heart ailment."
The oncologist, who had also undergone pacemaker implantation, was resuscitated and immediately operated upon by a multidisciplinary team of surgeons.
(With PTI inputs)