Ground report: Overworked, unsafe — young doctors battle apathy in line of duty
The brutal rape and murder of a 32-year-old doctor in Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital last Friday has sparked nationwide protests
At 4am on Monday, a 31-year-old woman resident doctor at the Indira Gandhi Hospital in Dwarka, New Delhi, heard a scream piercing through the corridors of the government institution. The cry was not unfamiliar — the sense of fear practised; the panic in that voice an everyday occurrence. She ran towards the shriek for help, and arrived at a room in the medicine ward, locked from the inside. Inside was a shaken woman nurse, protecting herself from an aggressive, and naked, male patient who was walking the halls. “She started shouting for help. We were on duty, and we rushed to control the patient but he did not stop. We had to call for security guards, but they took 30 minutes to arrive. In all that time, the nurse was locked inside,” the doctor said.
