India’s medical fraternity is up in arms over the rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor, with the horrific case sparking strikes by professionals and women’s groups across the country, as well as demands for stronger staff security.
The resident doctor’s body was discovered last Friday with injury marks and signs of sexual assault at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, according to police and local officials. One suspect has been arrested.
“It is an absolutely shameful incident for all of us. The complete responsibility for the safety and security of doctors lies with the administration and in that there can be no ifs and buts,” said Navneet Bali, co-chair of the healthcare council at the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India.
Lawyer and women’s rights activist Vrinda Grover told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that the parents of the victim were initially told “by hospital authorities that their daughter had committed suicide”, but an autopsy later confirmed that the victim was raped and killed.
The principal of the medical college was shifted to another one following the incident, but was later forced to go on long leave by a court after a civil group filed a case.
The case has sparked outrage in India, with doctors demanding duty rooms, proper security and for hospitals to be declared “safe zones”.
Tens of thousands of women across civil society groups joined doctors earlier this week in a protest march in Kolkata, with the movement spreading to the financial capital of Mumbai in western India.
“Public anger is very high. Last night, a candlelight protest was held at [more than 100] locations in Kolkata primarily by women, but also men on the eve of the nation’s Independence Day,” said Pridibesh Bandopadhyay, a Kolkata resident.
“Everybody appears highly-strung and social media is buzzing with messages because it is not only a case of rape, but that of a woman doctor inside the premises of a government medical college.”
In the capital, New Delhi, junior doctors wearing white coats held posters that read: “Doctors are not punching bags”, as they sat in protest outside a large government hospital, televised images showed.
Local media reported that protests were also being staged in other cities such as Lucknow, capital of the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, and in the western tourist resort state of Goa.
“We have been seeing attacks on doctors even in the emergency rooms of hospitals. Although we say there are enough deterrent laws, in reality they are far from working,” Bali told This Week in Asia.
“We have to make sure that the security is so good that young doctors are completely protected. As a country, there should be a zero-error syndrome for doctors. We need protection in letter and spirit.”
Doctors in state-run hospitals battle through unearthly hours daily to treat thousands of patients, some of whom stream in from far-flung villages into city hospitals for appointments.
Junior doctors are the ones who often handle the initial treatment of patients in the overcrowded hospitals. During the Covid-19 pandemic, hundreds of doctors lost their lives after succumbing to infections while caring for patients.
Two years ago, a gynaecologist in the northwestern state of Rajasthan committed suicide after she was charged with murder of a patient who died. In a note, she wrote that the patient had died during a normal procedure, triggering protests by the medical fraternity.
In 2015, an Indian nurse, who spent 42 years in a persistent vegetative state after being raped and strangled, died from the attack by a ward attendant in the Mumbai hospital where she worked.
Bali said safety and security conditions for doctors needed vast improvement.
“The young doctors are the ones who really run the hospitals. These are the ones who work night and day and they don’t have an iota of safety,” Bali said.
“Post-Covid, there was a huge euphoria about our healthcare workers nationally. But all that seems to have been forgotten and people don’t seem to really care that it is doctors who put their lives at stake against a killer virus.”
The eastern state of West Bengal where the rape and murder took place is ruled by the Trinamool Congress, but observers say safety remains a persistent concern for doctors across parts of India.
Sajal Ghosh, a spokesman for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Kolkata, told This Week in Asia that people across the city were distressed over the incident and several doctors had joined the strike.
The BJP leads the coalition that rules India’s government.
“All the city hospitals operations have been affected by the strike as many senior doctors too have joined junior doctors in the strike,” he said.
It was suspected there might be more people involved in the case, Ghosh said.
The BJP would stage a pen-down strike for two hours in the city on Friday, he said, referring to a non-violent protest where workers attend offices partially.
