Kerala records 8,867 new Covid-19 cases

Kochi: Kerala on Friday logged 8,867 new Covid-19 patients from 79,554 samples tested during the last 24 hours. The State recorded 67 deaths taking the fatalities to 26,734 till date.

Doctors belonging to the Kerala Government service launched the second phase of their agitation on Friday demanding better service condition and restoration of pay and allowances that were reduced drastically since the pandemic struck the State.

Things took a turn for the worse on Friday as a group of politicians including  the panchayath president of Sooranadu in Kollam district physically assaulted Dr Ganesh, the duty doctor of Sasthamkotta. Sreekumar, the panchayath president and a group of politicians had brough the dead body of a young woman late Thursday night to the hospital and wanted the duty doctor to issue



a death certificate. But Dr Ganesh, who was the lone doctor on duty asked them to wait for few minutes as he was attending to an emergency case , said Dr T N Suresh, general secretary, Kerala Government Medical Officers Association.

“Moreover, there are guidelines to issue death certificate. The doctor has to check the factors that led to the death. The persons who had accompanied the  body refused to bring to the ward and insisted that Dr Ganesh should go to the vehicle to inspect the body. This was a dubious demand,” said Dr Suresh. The video of the group attacking the doctor went viral by Friday morning.

One of the major demands raised by the KGMOA is the safety of the duty doctors from the attack of persons accompanying the patients.