New Delhi: After putting it in the cold storage for five years, the Union health ministry is deliberating a central law on protecting healthcare workers and has agreed to constitute a panel for the same, in the backdrop of a nationwide protests by doctors following the alleged rape-murder of a post-graduate doctor in Kolkata last week, ThePrint has learnt.
The high-level committee, which will include representatives from various ministries as well as doctors’ association, will hold consultations with various stakeholders before proposing a law for providing legal safeguards in healthcare settings, top sources said.
“The thinking is to incorporate views from all stakeholders for such a bill to come up,” Union health secretary Apurva Chandra told ThePrint.
Several professional networks of doctors — whose representatives have met with Union health minister J.P. Nadda over the past few days following the rape and murder of a post-graduate doctor in Kolkata last week — have demanded that the Union government must bring a separate law seeking to penalise those assaulting medical professionals.
A draft central legislation that came out in 2019, seeking to penalise those assaulting doctors and other healthcare professionals with imprisonment of up to 10 years and fine of Rs 2-10 lakh, had been stalled by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Following a meeting with Nadda Tuesday, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) — the largest network of doctors in the country — said it had demanded the government to declare hospitals across the country as safe zones and bring a central law on violence against healthcare workers.
“Additionally, we also want the National Medical Commission (NMC) to include safety and security related criteria, along with infrastructure and security-related norms, while allowing new medical colleges and institutions and or renewing old ones,” IMA President Dr R.V. Asokan told ThePrint.
Resident doctors in government hospitals in most parts of the country have been on strike since Monday in protest against the brutal crime against a doctor at RG Kar Hospital in Kolkata, disrupting out-patient department services and elective procedures.
Following a meeting with the health minister late Tuesday evening, the Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association (FORDA), however, announced the conclusion of its nationwide strike saying their critical demands had been met by the government.
“This decision comes after extensive negotiations and marks a step forward in ensuring the safety and rights of healthcare professionals across the country. With the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the tragic incident at RG Kar Medical College, this addressed our primary demand for an impartial investigation by a central agency,” said the association.
It added, though, that this “doesn’t mean that Justice has been served, but at least the wheel has been set in motion”.
“Furthermore, a ratification committee on the Central Healthcare Protection Act will be formed, with FORDA as a key stakeholder. This committee will work to ensure the timely implementation of the Act, providing a safer working environment for healthcare workers as soon as possible. The meetings of which will start in the next two weeks,” FORDA said in a statement.
Several other groups of resident doctors, including Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) and United Doctors’ Front Association (UDFA), and the junior doctors’ wing of the IMA, however, have decided to continue their strike.
“Unless a renewed draft bill on central law for violence against doctors is put out in public by the government, we are not relenting on our protests,” said Dr Arun Kumar, UDFA general secretary.
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The bill that was put on back-burner
The 2019 version of the bill, was prepared at the behest of former Union health minister Harsh Vardhan, but the MHA rejected it saying that no central legislation can be brought to protect the practitioners of one specific profession.
The bill had been prepared in the wake of a growing number of attacks on doctors in hospitals and the immediate trigger for the drafting of the legislation was a brutal assault on junior doctors in West Bengal that year, which had also led to nationwide protests by medical professionals.
“The Union law ministry had already given a go-ahead to the draft bill but the MHA red-signalled it and the bill was put on the back burner,” said a source in the ministry.
Apart from proposing strict legal provisions against grievous attack on doctors, the draft bill also said that those resorting to violence or causing damage to the property of a healthcare facility can be imprisoned for six months to five years and fined between Rs 50,000 and Rs 5 lakh.
Healthcare professionals would have included doctors and para-medical staff, as well as medical students, diagnostic service providers in a health facility and ambulance drivers.
Asokan, meanwhile, said that appropriate security arrangements and legal safeguards were all the more important in healthcare settings now as women are increasingly joining the workforce.
“Earlier, the largest percentage of women was there in the nursing profession in hospitals but now women have taken over men even in medical colleges and most of them have to work long shifts in unsafe environments which is unacceptable,” he said.
In an advisory issued to medical institutions Tuesday, the medical education regulator NMC has said that all institutions need to develop a policy for a safe work environment within the college and hospital campus for all the staff members including faculty, medical students and resident doctors.
“The policy should ensure adequate safety measures at OPD, wards, casualty, hostels and other open areas in the campus and residential quarters. Corridors and campus are well lit in the evening for staff to walk safely from one place to another and all sensitive areas be covered by CCTV for monitoring,” the NMC said.
Adequate security measures, including posting of adequate security staff (male and female) should be made available at the OPD, wards, casualty, labour rooms, hostels and residential quarters and other open areas in the institutions, the advisory also added.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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