The Delhi Medical Association today took strong exception to the comments made by Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij in connection with the death of a seven-year-old girl at Gurgaon's Fortis hospital, saying it was high time politicians and the media stop making doctors the "soft target".

The DMA, the Delhi state branch of the Indian Medical Association, in a statement, also sought to defend doctors in another case at the Max Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, saying the clinical approach for "an extremely premature foetus of less than 24 weeks of pregnancy is not viable and non-survivable"."It is high time now that the media, society, politicians, bureacrats, etc. stop blaming the soft target called 'doctors' for anything bad or any unwanted event happening and malign the image of the medical profession," the statement read.

A panel set up by Haryana government probing allegations of overcharging against the Fortis hospital regarding a case in which the minor girl died of dengue has found "several irregularities" following which the state government is planning to lodge an FIR, minister Vij said yesterday."In simple words, it was not a death, it was a murder," Vij had alleged at crowded press conference in Chandigarh.The Max Hospital case pertains to a premature boy, wrongly declared dead last week at the hopsital where he was born, and who died during treatment at a nursing home in Pitampura yesterday.