A reputed website carried a detailed story based on the survey of lady doctors—right from young students to senior ones holding high positions in prestigious medical colleges and hospitals across
India. They all narrated their harrowing experience at the hands of their male superiors and colleagues. They also said that female para-medical staff, like nurses, too face sexual harassment, to say the least.
They did not name any of their male superiors and colleagues. Some of the perpetrators are famous names in their fields.
Post-August 9 horrible rape-cum-murder in R G Kar Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, the whole narrative has been set in such a way as if the main culprits were patients and their relatives or attendants. No, it was the inside job, where the prime accused is a civic volunteer of Kolkata Police, and those who tried to hush up the matter were the same doctors, including the principal.
Later, the Kolkata Police took 14 hours to file an FIR.
The whole story has been given a new twist and the blame has been heaped on the patients and their attendants. They are paying the price for a crime they had not committed. They are dying unsung and unreported because of the strike by doctors all over the country.
Women safety
It needs to be understood that attacks on doctors or any para-medic employees come under the criteria of occupational hazards—which may be bizarre. In such a situation both male and female doctors and staff are targeted. But in this case, the PG doctor became the victim of the horrendous crime because she was a woman. Had a male doctor been sleeping in the seminar room of the hospital Sanjay Roy would not have dared to touch him?
Thus, it was the issue of women’s safety, especially in the workplace, where female professionals are sexploited by their male bosses and colleagues, be it doctors, judges, journalists, bureaucrats,
technocrats, business executives, film personalities, professors, etc.
Though the media has been screaming from the housetop about the latest incident, it is an undeniable fact that newsrooms are among the worst workplaces on this count. No, there is not just one M J Akbar or Tarun Tejpal. They all go unreported and unpunished.
How safe under CISF protection?
If celebrated and decorated Director General of Police, K P S Gill, can be convicted for molesting a middle-aged married IAS officer in a high-profile party and Inspector General of Haryana Police, Ravi
Kant Sharma had to spend a decade in jail after being accused of murdering a woman Indian Express journalist Shivani Bhatnagar in Delhi, the Supreme Court’s order to deploy CISF in R G Kar Medical
College and Hospital is hardly a guarantee of security for lady doctors.
While the husband of the victim officer, B R Bajaj, was also a top IAS officer of Punjab, that of the journalist was also a journalist, Rakesh Bhatnagar. Both these incidents involving empowered women
rocked the country more than a quarter century back.
The media is questioning the posting of civic volunteers of Kolkata Police but it is also a fact that even corporate hospitals hire bouncers from private security services and not full-fledged police personnel.
Not only that, but what is forgotten is that in many government hospitals across the country there already have a police presence in one way or the other. So, the issue is not at all so simple as it is being made out by many TV anchors and reporters—several of them having little idea about the government hospitals outside metro cities.
Hospital, not garrison
The deployment of a strong police contingent would not only turn the government hospitals into a garrison but may drive many poor patients towards private hospitals, which had earned huge amounts of
money during the 12-13 days of strike and agitation across the country.
If it was an inside job in the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital why is it that the poor patients have been put in the dock? In the name of security to lady doctors, and maybe nurses and female paramedic staff, the moneyed class in the media started espousing the cause of the private hospitals—though without taking their names.
Strangely, the activists of the Left parties too—not to speak of the Bharatiya Janata Party which has its political agenda in West Bengal—did not see the corporate design in this movement.
Indefensible crime
True, cases of assaults are not uncommon in hospitals after the death of patients. This is an indefensible crime. But it is also a fact that in several instances the hospitals are also responsible because, in the absence of doctors, inexperienced junior doctors or para-medical staff spoil the case, thus leading to death.
However, such incidents are not only confined to the government hospitals. During his reporting days, this correspondent covered how the negligence of a particular private hospital led to the death of a young mother. The relatives created a ruckus in the hospital as it belonged to a renowned surgeon who was also the head of the department of surgery of the premier medical college hospital of that particular state.
Reports of clashes taking place in private hospitals at the time of the release of dead bodies are common now. This is because sometimes the management of hospitals is accused of making bogus and inflated bills. This had once happened with the father of an English-language journalist a few years back.
Those who can foment violence in private or even government hospitals are rich and powerful who can bring people just on a phone call. In this era of fast spread of information and easy transportation assembling a mob in minutes is no big deal.
Contrary to this, the poor and disempowered lot of attendants cannot create any such scene even if their patient had died due to negligence in any government hospital. They cannot even hire an ambulance to take the body home—rather take it in a cycle rickshaw or ‘thela’ (hand-cart).
In the same way, cases of rape and molestation within the hospitals have also been reported. But it would be wrong to blame the poor and hapless patients and his or her attendants for it. These crimes are often committed by the big and powerful having strong political and bureaucratic connections or by fellow employees—like in R G Kar Hospital.
Not an easy job
So, be it providing security to professional women or females as such, it is not an easy job as is being argued by panelists in TV studios.
When a superintendent of a medical college hospital, who incidentally was a woman, ordered that the girl MBBS students should return by a stipulated time at night, the female students went on a warpath. This was even though the women junior doctors and PG scholars were allowed late-night entry for obvious reasons. The protesting students raised the slogan that they were against the Talibanization of the medical college.
Similarly, when the lady warden of a prestigious university in India imposed some restrictions on the male visitors to the girls’ hostel in a particular situation, the girls rose up in revolt. They raised the slogan: “Wahi merey bhaiyya, wahi merey sanyyan” (They are our brothers, they are our spouses).
In both cases, the woman administrators argued that they just wanted to impose discipline, which is their primary duty as they are accountable not only to parents but also to the authority and society.
Women’s safety issues deserve a serious and dispassionate approach, rather than hurling accusations and counter-accusation.
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