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Four Indian doctors in Nigeria have said they are being forced to treat
Ebola patients against their will. They also charged their employers
with taking away their passports to ensure that the doctors couldn’t
leave the country. The doctors – Yogesh Chandra, Dinesh Kumar, Hemant
Jingar, and Kapil Chouhan – said they were threatened to not leave
Primus Hospital in the Nigerian capital Abuja. With the virus spreading
across the country, the doctors feared for their lives. According to the
Hindustan Times,Chouhan said..
“We haven’t been provided with any security kits. Our passports have been impounded. When we spoke to the Indian high commission, we were asked to come to the mission. But we were stopped by guards from leaving the hospital,”The CEO of Primus Super Speciality Hospital India Dr ND Khurana, however, appeared to not agree with the demands of the four doctors. He said:
“We haven’t been provided with any security kits. Our passports have been impounded. When we spoke to the Indian high commission, we were asked to come to the mission. But we were stopped by guards from leaving the hospital,”The CEO of Primus Super Speciality Hospital India Dr ND Khurana, however, appeared to not agree with the demands of the four doctors. He said:
“We are in touch with our Abuja branch. These doctors are afraid of contracting the dreaded disease but it is against medical morality. One doctor has left the service, which will be treated as impropriety,” But Dr Narendra Saini, secretary of the Indian Medical Association, countered Khurana, arguing that a doctor’s personal choice should dictate if they want to work in a particular country.
He added that the Indian doctors were forced to work since local
physicians – who were on a strike – refused to come back to work when
the Ebola epidemic broke out. Government sources, however, told HT that
following the intervention of the Indian mission in Nigeria, the doctors
have agreed to work in the hospital for a few more days and then leave
the country.