India’s top court orders medical safety task force
India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered a national task force to examine how to bolster security for healthcare workers after the “horrific” murder of a doctor sparked medical strikes and furious protests.
The discovery of the 31-yearold doctor’s body at a state-run hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata on August 9 has stoked nationwide anger at the chronic issue of violence.
Doctors’ associations from government-run hospitals in many cities across India have launched strikes that cut nonessential services, with protests in their second week.
Protesters marched through Kolkata on Tuesday, holding up signs demanding “justice”, while the country’s top court issued orders in the capital New Delhi.
“The brutality of the physical assault and the nature of the crime have shocked the conscience of the nation,” the three-judge bench said in its order, calling the details “horrific”.
Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud read out the order, which called for the formation of a “national task force” of top doctors to prepare a plan to prevent violence in healthcare facilities and draw up an “enforceable national protocol” for safe working conditions. The court said it had been forced to step in as the issue was of national concern. “With the involvement of systemic issues for healthcare across the nation, this court has had to intervene,” it added.
“The lack of institutional safety norms at medical establishments, against both violence and physical violence against medical professionals, is a matter of serious concern,” the court order read.
“With few or no protective systems to ensure their safety, medical professionals have become vulnerable to violence,” it added, highlighting a lack of CCTV cameras and a failure to screen visitors to hospitals for weapons. “Lack of security personnel in medical care units is more of a norm than an exception,” it said.
Many of the protests have been led by doctors and other healthcare workers but have also been joined by tens of thousands of ordinary Indians demanding action. Doctors have demanded the implementation of the Central Protection Act, a bill to protect healthcare workers from violence.