Kurukshetra, May 2 --- COVID warrior Dr. Lokender Goel, owner of Radhakrishan hospital, Kurukshetra, who was handling the maximum number of COVID patients in the town since last year was arrested by the police under various stringent section of IPC including 332/353/186/188/269/270/492/147/149 and Disaster Management Act, here today.
The arrest was made after the Haryana Chief
Minister, Manohar Lal held a meeting with the district officer to review the health arrangements made there for
COVID-19 patients in the district and scolded the Chief
Medical Officers for various lapses. Chief Minister was here to condole the
death of News Anchor Rohit Sadana at his residence.
Dr. Goel was produced before Judicial Magistrate
First Class, Tarun Chaudhary, within two hours of his arrest, and released on
bail.
Indian Medical Association (IMA), Kurukshetra,
condemned the action of the administration and warned that if all the charges
against the doctors are not dropped within next 24 hours, “it would be forced
to take some drastic steps”.
In an emergent called meeting at the Radhakrishan
hospital under the chairmanship of its President Dr. Davinder Paruthi, IMA
strongly condemned the action of the Administration. Former President of IMA,
Dr. Ajay Aggarwal told this correspondent after the meeting that great
resentment prevailed not amongst doctors but also amongst the residents over
the administration’s action. He said that IMA felt that some COVID protocol
might have been violated by the Doctor but that were for the sake of the
patients being treated at his hospital.
According to SHO, Kurukshetra, Davinder Walia, the
arrest was made based on a complaint filed by Amrik Singh, PA to Deputy Commissioner,
Kurukshetra, on April 27, last.
Amrik Singh in his complaint had alleged that Dr.
Goel, who was tested COVID positive on the same day came to the camp office of
the Deputy Commissioner along with 25 to 30 relatives of the COVID patients
under treatment at his hospital and forced his entry into the camp office by
pushing the policeman on duty at about 8.30 pm. He raised a hue and cry that
his hospital, which is handling 80 COVID patients, is left with oxygen for just
about an hour. In his complaint, he further alleged that on enquiry Chief
Medical Officer found that oxygen was sufficient till 4 am the next day. Thus,
Dr. Goel, being COVID positive not only endangered the life of others but also
created unnecessary panic amongst the patients and their relatives.
Dr Goel’s wife, Dr. Monika, Director of the
hospital, said that administration was acted biased towards them as they had
filled a case of recovery of over Rs. 2.50 crore against the state government
in the Punjab and Haryana High Court for the treatment of COVID patients sent
by the government to their hospital in the first phase of the COVID epidemic.
She said that the oxygen tanker purchased by the
hospital from their vendor was detained by the police at Karnal on April 27 for
over 10 hours forcing Dr. Goel to go personally to the DC camp office when his
telephonic calls did not have any effect, and the life of the patients was
endangered. She alleged that later, district administration fixed only a daily
quota of one tonne per day against the requirement of four tonnes, which they
were regularly getting from their private vendor earlier.
