The Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital is struggling to deal with emergency services after resident doctors went on a strike.

The resident doctors are calling for the arrest of 25 people following an alleged assault on five of their colleagues by relatives of a patient on Monday night.

The patient, who was undergoing treatment in the Central Mumbai hospital for the last 15 days, died in the hospital and the body was not handed over to the relatives.

Dr. Praveen Bangar, Resident doctor and senior AMO, said, “Five doctors were attacked by the relatives of a patient who died late last night. They assaulted the doctors over the issue of post-mortem.”

After holding a meeting with the hospital’s Dean, the doctors decided to go on a strike demanding that arrests be made under the non-bailable offence sections.

The doctors said, “This is not the first time such an incident took place.   Doctors across the state are being attacked repeatedly and the hospital has hardly given protection to doctors as promised earlier.”

In the meantime, the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) meets today to discuss their future course of action.

Services could be hit in other hospitals as well as doctors from other hospitals may decide to join the strike.