After Kolkata rape, female physicians now carry knife, scalpel and pepper spray

Five years ago, the government of West Bengal state in India pledged to clamp down on violence against doctors. It promised public hospitals better security equipment, female guards to support female physicians and controlled entry points, according to an internal government memo seen by Reuters.

None of these measures had been implemented at the public hospital where a young female doctor was sexually assaulted and killed on August 9, allegedly by a police volunteer, four trainee doctors there said. Instead, in the days leading up to the homicide-assault, which prompted nationwide outrage and a doctors strike, only two male guards manned RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, they said. They were supplemented by a few closed circuit cameras that did not comprehensively cover the sprawling premises, according to the trainees.

One of the doors of the lecture hall where the doctor had been resting during a 36-hour shift when she was attacked had no lock, said two other trainee doctors who had also slept there. The air conditioning in the designated break room had malfunctioned, they said.

After two doctors at a different hospital were assaulted by a patient's relatives in 2019, West Bengal had promised to install "effective security equipment and systems," regulate entry and exit to hospital premises and create a compensation policy for assaulted staff, according to the state health department memo dated June 17, 2019.

The two-page document, which is reported by Reuters for the first time, was prepared after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee met that day with trainee doctors protesting against the attack on their colleagues as a "record note" of the interaction. The memo did not state to whom it was addressed.

Banerjee had directed officials to take "effective and prompt" action "within a specified timeframe", according to the document. It did not detail the preparation period.

"If those measures had been taken, this incident may never have happened," said Dr Riya Bera, a postgraduate trainee at RG Kar, of her colleague's death.

Asked about the 2019 assurances, West Bengal Health Secretary N S Nigam said the Covid-19 pandemic had disrupted improvements for two years but "a lot" had been done since 2021, including strengthening CCTV coverage and engaging private security in hospitals.

"We are committed to do the remaining work and fill the gaps that emerged after the RG Kar incident," he said.

Banerjee on August 28 also announced that $12 million would be spent to begin work on improvements such as better lighting in health facilities, resting spaces and female security staff.

The chief minister's office, as well as RG Kar hospital, did not respond to calls seeking comment.

Authorities continue to investigate the August 9 incident, for which no charges have yet been filed.

The assault on the doctor in Kolkata, who cannot be named under local laws, recalled memories of the 2012 gang rape of a physiotherapist in a Delhi bus, which convulsed India in anger and triggered protests.

Reuters interviewed 14 female doctors at government hospitals in West Bengal and elsewhere in India about their challenges in a country where women's safety is a long-standing concern.

They described poor working conditions, including aggressive treatment from the families of patients and having to sleep on benches in dimly-lit corridors due to a lack of rest facilities.

Some doctors spoke of napping in break rooms with no locks during lengthy shifts, only to have people barging in. Others described confronting male patients who photographed them without permission, claiming that they were documenting evidence of their treatment.

Indian Medical Association (IMA) president RV Asokan said that while the August 9 homicide-assault appeared to be unique in its brutality, "the fact that anybody can walk in shows the vulnerability of the place, and this when more and more women are joining the profession".

Some doctors have taken self-defence measures: One doctor at a hospital in Odisha state, which neighbours West Bengal, said her father gave her a knife to ward off potential attackers.

And Dr Gauri Seth, a post graduate trainee at Medical College, Kolkata, said that after the August 9 incident, she would not go on duty again without carrying a pepper spray or scalpel to defend herself.

About 60 per cent of India's doctors are female, and three-quarters of them have described being victims of verbal abuse, physical attacks and other harassment while on duty, according to the IMA, the nation's largest group of physicians.

"It was initially quite scary to wake up to unknown men in the dark," she said, adding that she was shocked the patients could enter the floor where she was resting without being stopped.