Dr. S Gurushankar, President of Tamil Nadu Chapter of the Association of Healthcare Providers of India (AHPI), has condemned renewed violence against doctors across the country, in light of the assault on a gynecologist by a patient’s relatives at a Kolkata hospital recently.

The Association called such violence as unacceptable and highlighted the need for stringent laws to punish the perpetrators. It also said that if doctors continue to be assaulted at work, taking healthcare to every part of the country will not be possible and the entire health infrastructure may be at risk of failure.

Dr. S Gurushankar said, “Incidents of family members of patients abusing and assaulting doctors and vandalizing hospital property have become common across India. This is not only demeaning for doctors, it also puts them at a risk of serious injury. There is an urgent need to provide adequate protection to doctors at work to ensure their safety and enact stringent laws to jail the perpetrators. The police need to take prompt action and not treat safety of doctors as a trivial issue.”

“Laws to protect doctors from patient rage exist in many states but suffer from poor implementation. No one has been convicted till now in India for assaulting a doctor. Things will continue to slide until some vandals are given stiff punishments to set an example to others and send a strong message that safety of doctors is sacrosanct”, he added.

In September 2019, Supreme Court had directed the Central Government to respond to a petition filed by AHPI (TN Chapter) to make violence against doctors and other medical personnel a separate penal offence. The petition sought immediate action against those indulging in violence against medical professionals and causing damage to clinical establishments.