The junior doctor was attacked in the emergency department of SVIMS in Tirupati
Hyderabad:
Amid a nationwide demand for the safety of doctors following the rape and murder at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, a female junior doctor was attacked by a patient at a hospital in Tirupati. The incident at the Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS) was recorded by a CCTV camera at the hospital.
The video footage shows the attacker grabbing the doctor by her hair and slamming her head against the steel frame of a hospital bed. Other doctors on the ward immediately come to their colleague’s aid, and the attacker is overpowered and taken away.
In a letter to SVIMS Director and Vice Chancellor Dr RV Kumar, the intern said she was on emergency medicine duty on Saturday. “…I was unexpectedly attacked by a patient, Bangaru Raju, who approached me from behind, pulled my hair and started violently hitting my head against the steel bar of a cot,” she wrote, adding that no security personnel were on site to help her.
The incident, she said, raised serious concerns about workplace safety. “If the patient had been armed with a sharp weapon, the situation could have escalated and had serious consequences,” the doctor wrote, calling for safety measures to ensure staff safety.
Following the incident, doctors at the hospital staged a protest and demanded workplace safety.
The incident at the Andhra Hospital comes weeks after the gruesome rape and murder of a junior doctor in Kolkata. The 31-year-old was raped and killed while on duty. The incident sparked massive protests and doctors from several leading institutions across the country took to the streets to demand measures to ensure their safety at work.
The Supreme Court has now set up a 10-member national task force to recommend measures to prevent violence against health workers and ensure working conditions for them. The court has said the task force will prepare an action plan to prevent gender-based violence and ensure a dignified working environment for doctors.
Against this backdrop, the incident at SVIMS in Tirupati has once again brought the safety of doctors on duty into the spotlight.
