Healthcare workers at one of Nepal’s leading university hospitals are demanding an investigation into the suicide attempt of a colleague in an alleged case of academic and workplace harassment.
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The case underscores the gruesome training, mental anguish, and power imbalances that plague the country’s medical residency programmes, according to the healthcare workers.
Interns at Dhulikhel Hospital on Tuesday exposed details of the grim working conditions many resident doctors experience at its psychiatry department, a day after a social media post raised alarms over their well-being. The anonymous post came after what it said was a suicide attempt by a first-year psychiatry resident on Sunday, urging people to pressure the authorities and prioritise the well-being of healthcare professionals.
“The situation is worse than what has been revealed,” the interns wrote in a letter addressing Doctorstory Nepal, a social media account sharing information about the country’s medical field. “Every single resident in the department has either thought about dying or leaving their residency because of how harsh it is. The professors have told them to go and kill themselves in the rounds and presentations in front of us all.”
Two doctors and an intern at Dhulikhel Hospital confirmed the veracity of the social media posts to This Week in Asia. Speaking anonymously, the doctor said that hospital staff had not been able to discuss the issue openly, fearing retribution from the hospital administration, while commending the interns for sharing the truth. The doctors accused a professor and an associate professor at the psychiatry department of using threatening language and encouraging consultants to verbally harass residents while the intern called the behaviour of the two professors “mental torture”.
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