Resident doctors, faculty members and other staff at the government-run Sassoon General Hospital are sporting black ribbons on arms to protest the transfer of its Dean, Dr Ajay Chandanwale.

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Dr Chandanwale was transferred on April 16 by the state government.

The coronavirus death count in Pune district, the second-worst affected by the pandemic after Mumbai in Maharashtra, has gone up to 48, of which over 40 patients died at Sassoon. "Since April 17 we are working with a black ribbon on our arms to protest the transfer. We have given a memorandum to the state government, asking it to revoke the decision," said Dr Prashant Munde, secretary of the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD).

On April 17, representatives of MARD, nurses and Class III and IV employees assembled in the main building of the hospital and staged a protest.