It’s high time the safety of women in the workplace gets the attention it needs, says Dr Soumya Swaminathan, recalling times when she too was a resident or intern at a hospital, finding any odd place to rest after long work hours.
Basic, decent and separate facilities should be available for all women, said Dr Swaminathan, the World Health Organization’s former Chief Scientist, speaking to businessline on the RG Kar Medical College incident in Kolkata, where a young doctor was brutally attacked and killed when she reportedly took rest in a seminar hall after a 36 hour shift.
Calling for safe working and resting places, she said, it was not just the young doctors who have to make do with inadequate, often unhygenic and unsafe facilities, but nurses too, who were in larger numbers.
Using healthcare as an example, against the backdrop of the RG Kar incident, Swaminathan, Chairperson - MSSRF. said, there should be a zero-tolerance policy in institutions, against violence involving women, not just on paper, but in terms of creating a conducive ecosystem there women can complain and action is taken. It helps when women are in a leadership position, she said, pointing to only about 20 percent of women being in leadership positions in healthcare institutions.
Late on Friday, the Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association (FORDA) had requested protesting resident doctors to resume their duties at the hospitals, following the Supreme Court’s intervention to set up a national task force to recommend measures for the safety and better conditions for the doctors, among other things. Resident doctors protesting for safe workplaces and standing in solidarity with their counterparts in Kolkata had withdrawn out-patient department (OPD) and elective services, while hospitals kept emergency services running. FORDA and other associations said, their strike was temporarily suspended, following the Apex Court’s assurances, and that they would review progress in the RG Kar case in two weeks.
Meanwhile, the Indian Medical Association has approached the Centre, calling for a Central Act to ensure safe workplaces for healthcare practitioners, among other things, adding that State level legislations had not prevented violence across the country.