Kolkata horror

THE rape-murder of a post-graduate trainee doctor at a state-run medical college and hospital in Kolkata has shocked the nation and triggered countrywide protests by doctors and medical students. The chilling brutality of the crime has led to comparisons with the 2012 Nirbhaya case, which had shaken our collective conscience and served as a catalyst for tightening rape laws. The resident doctor was sexually assaulted and killed in a seminar hall, where she had gone to take a short break from her strenuous duty. The college principal has resigned, while two security guards have been expelled for dereliction of duty. Nothing less than a high-level probe is needed to get to the bottom of this horrifying matter.

The need to ensure the safety and security of healthcare professionals cannot be overemphasised. What makes life-savers and healers vulnerable to violence and harassment? Gruelling timings, especially odd hours, excessive workload due to staff shortage, the entry of unauthorised or undesirable persons and undue pressure from some patients’ families are key factors. During the Covid-19 pandemic, countless doctors had put their lives on the line to save patients; around 1,600 of them didn’t survive. Yet, the medical community remains unappreciated and unprotected.

Doctors and paramedics simply cannot discharge their duties to the best of their ability if the fear of being attacked or accosted hounds them at every step. A Bill seeking to safeguard healthcare personnel and the property of medical institutions remains in limbo. Practically nothing has changed on the ground since Kerala doctor Vandana Das was stabbed to death by a drug addict at a hospital in May last year. And not many remember the case of Aruna Shanbaug, a nurse who was sexually assaulted in a Mumbai hospital in 1973 and spent the next four decades in a vegetative state before she breathed her last. Will the Kolkata horror pave the way for much-needed reforms? Let’s see.