Amid a nationwide call for ensuring the safety of doctors after a 31-year-old trainee doctor was raped and murdered at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, a woman junior doctor was attacked by a patient at a hospital in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh.
The incident took place at Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS).
The CCTV footage shows a patient running after a doctor, grabbing her by her hair and banging her head on the steel frame of a hospital bed. Other doctors in the ward come to her rescue and the attacker was overpowered and taken away. The incident took place in a fairly crowded hospital ward.
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The woman then wrote a letter SVIMS director cum vice-chancellor Dr RV Kumar and said, “I was unexpectedly attacked by a patient, Bangaru Raju, who approached me from behind, pulled my hair and began forcibly banging my head against the steel rod of a cot.” She added that no security personnel were present at the site to help her.
The incident, she said, raises serious concerns about safety in workplace. “If patient had been armed with a sharp weapon, the situation could have escalated with severe consequences,” the doctor wrote, demanding security measures to ensure safety of staff.
This incident at the Andhra hospital comes weeks after the rape and murder of a postgraduate trainee doctor at Kolkata. The 31-year-old was raped and killed on duty. The incident sparked massive protests and doctors of several premier institutions across the country took to the streets to demand measures to ensure their safety at work.