Kottayam: A construction laborer lost his thumb thanks to a strike by a section of doctors in the Government Medical College. P.C. Ebenezer from Kanakkari was rushed to the hospital at 11 am on Tuesday with his thumb almost severed in an accident at his workplace. He was told to wait in front of the surgery department and he waited for four hours.
At 3 pm, he was told to seek medical assistance from somewhere else as the post-graduate students in the Medical College were on strike. Doctors in another hospital said it was too late to stitch back the digit.
Post-graduate students at the Medical College have been staying away from work for two days. The students’ association has warned of spreading their strike to critical care if the government did not heed their demands.
Though the emergency care, intensive care units and labor rooms have been kept free from the strike, the functioning of the wards and surgical departments have been hit.
A pregnant woman from Odisha has also complained that she was turned away at the hospital where she had sought treatment for severe burns. Thilothama suffered 60 percent burns in an accident in her house in Kochi but she was denied treatment in four hospitals including the Medical College, her relatives said.
Ebenezar’s relatives said that they will raise a complaint with the Health Department seeking disciplinary action against those responsible for denying treatment to the laborer and causing him to lose a thumb.
Ebenezar was cutting an iron rod with an electric cutter at a construction site at Pattithanam when the tool slipped and slashed his left thumb. The digit was hanging by the skin when he was taken to the Medical College Hospital, his son Anoop said.
He was later taken to the Pushpagiri Hospital in Kottayam but the doctors said it was impossible to stitch the thumb back six hours after the accident. They said they had no option but to surgically sever the thumb.
The doctors said they could have sutured the thumb if Ebenezar was operated upon within two hours of the accident, Anoop said.