Even after Kolkata horror, State-run hospitals remain a treacherous terrain for female doctors

The Kolkata rape and murder has brought to light the status of workplace security for female doctors in State-run hospitals in India

Every day, Dr. Swati Sagar, a dental surgeon at a community health centre in Uttar Pradesh’s Dhaulana, makes sure she leaves work before the sun sets so she can reach her home, almost 40 km away in Noida, safe and sound.

In Dhaulana, located in Hapur district, closed shops and empty roads after 7 p.m. are a common sight. The centre itself is located on an isolated patch of land surrounded by green fields that stretch as far as the eye can see. Nobody ventures out of their homes come darkness.

“It’s an unsafe area. There’s no policeman in sight. Drunk men enter hospital premises often, even during the daytime. The guards don’t help, and there are no CCTV cameras either,” laments Dr. Sagar. She is the only female doctor at the centre.

She adds that she has been especially on edge since the Kolkata incident, wherein a second-year postgraduate trainee doctor was allegedly raped and murdered inside the State-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital while she was resting in a seminar hall after a 36-hour shift.

But working in smaller towns sometimes presents an even bigger set of challenges, says Dr. Sagar.

Even at her centre, there is no space to catch a moment’s respite. “I cannot rest at all. I only have a chair that doesn’t recline. There are no attached washrooms either. Us female doctors understand why the Kolkata victim was forced to rest in a public area. Here, too, I am left with no choice but to sleep in patients’ beds, waiting rooms, or even empty halls,” she says.

Several doctors in smaller towns, including Dr. Sagar, continue to agitate for safe workplaces in their own ways — some show up to work wearing black ribbons, and others gather in communities to protest whenever they can.