Ensure workplace safety first: Delhi healthcare women workers
New Delhi: Amidst the protest and calls for reform in healthcare following alleged rape and murder of doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Hospital, women healthcare workers in Delhi are sounding the alarm about the dire safety conditions within hospitals, emphasising that internal issues are compounding the difficulties they face on the job. While threats from patients and outsiders are significant, it is the systemic problems within hospitals—particularly the challenges faced by lower-tier staff like nurses—that exacerbate their daily struggles.
The pervasive issues of internal harassment and lack of support highlight a broader crisis affecting female medical professionals across the sector, they reported. “It’s part of your profession (to handle notorious patients). You cannot crib”, was told to a female nurse at a Central Delhi govt hospital when she complained of harassment to her seniors. Around a month ago, she recalled, “a patient had asked me for inappropriate physical contact.”
She said that she wants to quit the job now as she cannot take anymore humiliation at the workplace.
“There is no mechanism to address the inappropriate behaviour we encounter daily,” she added.
More than a dozen female doctors highlighted that many hospitals have “predators” as seniors who behave “inappropriately”, pass “lewd remarks” and even “molest” but are neither spoken about nor addressed.
Ainya Khan, a 32-year-old resident doctor at AIIMS, added, “The Kolkata case has brought attention to the issue, but it also risks shifting the focus, making it seem as though female doctors face the same conditions as their male counterparts when that’s not the case. However, I don’t believe we are ready to address this fully yet. It affects all women workers, not just doctors, and our workplaces remain unsafe.”
While Doctors are leading protests, demanding justice and stringent laws to prevent assaults of doctors at the workplace in the capital for over a week now, the Indian Medical Association had called for a 24-hour nationwide withdrawal of all hospital services barring emergency care starting Saturday.
