Скачать или смотреть Bouncers employed in hospitals to curb violence

(7 Sep 2012) Bouncers are being employed by the government hospital in Delhi to try to protect doctors when relatives go mad.
The measure was taken after an number of attacks on staff by grieving relatives when patients in medical care died.

Pradeep Kumar's workout is not for everyone.
He spins the mugdar - a 90-pound wooden club - for 15 minutes every day.
That's after a few hundred push-ups and squats, and an hour or two of wrestling.
At the end of these morning sessions, the twenty-five-year-old puts on his uniform, brings out his Harley-style motorbike and rides it to work - at a hospital.
Kumar is a bouncer, the first line of defence outside an emergency room that is usually overcrowded and understaffed.
"We get some tough cases here. We have to handle all types of them. Some days ago, there was a stabbing case and a huge crowd gathered here - about 400-500 people. Dealing with the public was difficult, but we handled them well and controlled the crowd," he says.
These instances of medical emergencies turning into security emergencies are very common at the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital in Delhi. Patients usually don't make it to the emergency room in time, and when they die at the hospital, their relatives start blaming - even attacking - the doctors.
Nitin Seth, a senior resident doctor at the hospital, barely survived one such riot a few months ago. Two brawling neighbours were brought in severely injured, and their riot came to the hospital with them. Seth managed to save his patients but went home bleeding from a fractured nose.
"We had informed all the police stations - Vikaspuri, Tilak Nagar, even the PCR (police control room) - that a crowd is gathering here and something might happen. But we didn't get any support. Then, once the (violent) incident had happened, in which several others and I were injured, we went on strike to ask for better security guards," he says.
Seth and other doctors at the DDU Hospital had gone on such strikes at least 20 times in the past six years.
This time, they didn't budge until the hospital assured them that they would get younger and bigger security guards - like Kumar. The results have been phenomenal.
"There have been no incidents of violent behaviour inside the wards or the casualty since they have been deployed. I think that this is so, first of all, because of their good physique. The (patients') relatives are in general afraid of them. Secondly, their training, because of which they do not allow crowds to collect," says Medical Superintendent Promila Gupta.
These guards work better because they been bouncers and even personal bodyguards in past lives. They don't let anyone in unless they need to be there, and they know how to be polite about it.
"Often the situation is such that, first we talk nice, but then we need to get terse. And if they still don't listen, we take them to talk to the CMO (Casualty Medical Officer) in his room. If they still don't listen, we have been asked to call the police from the nearby post and get such people evicted. Even if we can't handle it, we are not allowed to rough anyone up," says special security guard Amarjeet Singh.
Kumar and Singh are part of a team of 21 split across three shifts at the hospital. And just as the doctors here are always ready to save a patient, these bouncers are here to save the doctors.

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