A doctors’ group on Wednesday condemned a decision by a government-run Covid-19 hospital in Ahmedabad to house Hindu and Muslim patients in separate wards and has demanded the “strictest possible action” against those responsible.

The Progressive Medicos and Scientists Forum (PMSF), a non-government body of doctors, said such acts of “differentiating between patients on the basis of religion” would “undermine the confidence” of sections of the population in government hospitals.

The PMSF said the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital had created separate wards for Hindu and Muslim Covid-19 patients and the hospital’s medical superintendent, Gunvant Rathod, has claimed that this had been done on the orders of the Gujarat government.

“It fills us with sheer disgust and a sense of insoluble hurt to our humanity to note that the ruling classes of India have stooped down to the level of differentiating between patients on the basis of religion,” the PMSF said in a statement.

Gujarat’s BJP government, by allowing differentiation between patients on the basis of faith, has sent a clear message to the management, doctors and other staff at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital to follow suit, the PMSF statement said.

“This is bound to have serious consequences for the wellbeing of patients irrespective of their religion, and will undermine the confidence of vast sections of society in public health institutions,” it said.

The PMSF has acknowledged that the state deputy chief minister and health minister Nitin Patel had denied any knowledge of the existence of such orders.

Although the health minister has promised to inquire into the incident, the PMSF said, the fact that such differentiation has occurred in a civil hospital “speaks volumes about the state of governance under the BJP state government”.

“If indeed this act had been committed without the minister’s knowledge, he should have apologised for such an unpardonable act by the officers of his department and should have given an undertaking to take the strictest possible action against the culprits,” the PMSF said.

The PMSF members include multiple doctors earlier with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, and other medical institutions in Delhi, Patna, Calcutta, Jaipur and Mumbai.