Kolkata trainee doctor’s rape-murder case brings to fore lack of safe workplaces for medicos at GGHs in Andhra Pradesh

Lack of safety measures for post-graduate doctors at Government General Hospitals in Andhra Pradesh highlighted by tragic incident.

The ghastly case of a rape and murder of an on-duty trainee doctor at R.G. Kar Government Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata has brought to the fore the lack of a safe workplace and facilities for post-graduate doctors at Government General Hospitals in Andhra Pradesh.

As part of their three-year course, every PG doctor has to work night shifts once in a week or more, depending on the department and also on the doctor strength in a given department. On any given day, 15-20 PG doctors are present at the new GGH here during night shifts, but all of them scattered.

“After studies, we leave for our night shift duty at around 7 p.m. and stay at the hospital up to 7 a.m. next day, and then come back to college. There are days when we work for 36 hours non-stop. If our requirement is not needed due to less patient load on a particular night, we have two options: either coming back to the hostel or sleeping on the hospital premises, both of which are unsafe for women,” said R. Jahnavi, a PG doctor in the Community Medicine Department, at Siddhartha Medical College in Vijayawada.

There are two routes from the college to reach the new Government General Hospital, which is 300-450 metres away, and both are from within the campus, say the PG doctors who have gathered under a tent to condemn the horrific incident in Kolkata that has sent shockwaves across the country.

“But at odd hours, when we are going back to the hostel, we do not find any security guards around us. There are many of us who do not have a two-wheeler. It is scarier for them. And, should we decide to stay back at GGH, there are no dedicated resting rooms for us,” said another PG doctor Harish Kumar.

“To know that the doctor at the Kolkata hospital was resting in the seminar hall when the incident took place is traumatising for us. It is a daily routine for most of us to rest wherever we find a comfortable seat at the hospital due to the lack of dedicated resting rooms for us,” said Dr. Jahnavi, who is a member of the A.P. Junior Doctors Association (APJUDA). There are no clean washrooms at the new GGH, too, she said, adding they have to walk back all the way to the hostel if they want to use the washrooms.

She also recalls how it is extremely common for them to receive verbal abuses and threats. “A first-year PG doctor received a rape threat from a patient’s kin once. We find ourselves alone and scared when we have to deliver bad news to relatives, some of whom come in groups and also in an inebriated condition. Security personnel must be posted outside ICUs,” she said, adding that the presence of CCTV cameras is hardly reassuring as several of them are defunct.