A young woman doctor allegedly died by suicide in Maharashtra’s Satara district, naming a police officer and another person for rape, sexual and mental harassment in an alleged handwritten note on her palm. While the police are now searching for the absconding accused, the circumstances of the case have led to several questions. Whether there was any political pressure on the young doctor, whether the police failed to address her concerns and complaints despite her constant follow-ups, the young doctors in Maharashtra have today protested by tying black ribbons, seeking strict action against the accused.
It’s especially important for us because uh you have a a record of uh providing technical assistance uh for you know health and family welfare government of India in drafting India’s new mental health care act as well not just in India but also abroad. You have helped in drafting mental health policies and have served as WHO consultant in many low and middle inome countries.
And to begin the show, I want to ask you with respect to this particular case. It has not just tarnished the image of Maharashtra but has raised several pertinent questions with respect to the alleged pressures that the young doctor faced. The kind of media reports that have been coming up suggest that she had been following up on the complaints that she had raised with the alleged interference in her work and that was probably somewhere that she felt frustrated. The family has spoken viferously against it saying that there was no action despite her repeated complaints. What does this entire case look to you as?
Look just take let’s just take medical students for example or medical or doctors for example we had the pile case in that in that particular case too the issue was harassment and abuse. Um in this particular case again it is an issue of harassment and abuse. And so clearly the the causes of harassment might be different. In that case it was uh alleged to be cast related issues. In this case it’s sexual abuse and harassment from people in authority. But uh this is a recurring pattern of behavior that seems to be happening.
We know that medical professionals especially doctors uh and particularly young doctors actually have one of the highest rates of suicide across the world. so that’s something that is very wellnown and that is something that we’ve seen in our own country.
The real challenge actually is that we have not actually addressed these kind of systemic and structural issues that underlying these suicides. So for example the issue of the harassment that happens to doctors uh the issue of uh uh you know inhuman working hours I mean we all when I was a junior doctor many many many decades ago uh the situation was particularly the same. It was you know you have junior doctors working 80 hours 90 hours a week uh in very poor working conditions.
You know the accommodation in public hospitals for junior doctors is is particularly woeful uh even in cities like Mumbai and maybe something that you should do at some stage and look at how they have to be accommodated in those places.And along with that they face harassment from two ends.
One is obviously in this case for example the harassment from authority figures such as say the police. Uh but there’s also another set of harassment that doctors face which is the issue of harassment that comes from patients. For example, you know very often uh people are quite upset uh and rightfully so because the medical system or the the hospital system does not meet their needs and the doctors tend to be the front end of it. So they face harassment u infrequent violence u and uh when the doctors actually have no control over how that can be done.
So i do think that I hope that at some stage uh we will move away from just uh an outrage about the most recent incident of a suicide by a young doctor. uh to actually uh as a society and as as policy actually start looking at what are these issues that are happening repeatedly and need to be addressed. You know a suicide is usually the tip of the iceberg.
Systemic Crisis Beyond Individual Cases
So if there is you know if you have these issues then there’s an even bigger iceberg underwater which we are not addressing at the moment. So I do think that we should really be using these kind of opportunities to saying okay how can we reform our system now what the police should be doing and how the police should reform their own system is for the police to to know I I wouldn’t want to get into that because I’m not a expert on police reforms for example but but as far as suicide is concerned I do think that we already know quite a bit and so those issues can be addressed and we need to be making those efforts to address those issues but I I don’t see that happen, you know, issues need to be addressed. Nothing much seems to be seems to be done in this.
Helplines Are Not Enough
You you’ve said quite rightly that this is the tip of the iceberg. There’s a much larger issue that has gone unressed. The government says help llines have been formed for the doctors for seeking redressal. You know you you have pointed out that the doctor is at the receiving end from both the sides as uh as someone who faces the patients as someone who’s a representative of the crumbling health infrastructure and as someone who faces the flag from within the system may be the police may be the administration maybe the political pressure when it comes to uh criminal uh medical issues.
So it’s it’s it’s such a uh complex issue really which uh can can possibly not be addressed only by putting helplines in place though there are several issues with the helplines themselves which have been put in place.
Need for Structural Reform
So let let us just go threadbear one thing at a time. Looking at this case, looking at the external pressure that uh you know doctors allegedly seem to face from the police, from the political or the the administrative system. young doctors who have just been out of uh you know their graduation who have already worked really hard through the years to get where they are when they are faced with such systemic challenges what are the safeguards that should be put in place to make sure that that doesn’t happen
I mean you know it’s not just a matter of safeguards Ben I think really we need to we need to look at our health care system from top to bottom in a a lot of this as you said very very rightly a lot of these problems arise from a health system uh which is uh falling apart at the margins so as to speak.
Conclusion: A Crisis That Must Lead to Change
So you know there’s a whole bunch of things for us to do. Some which are immediate and might be local. Uh some which will take longer and are broader and systematic. You know there is a national suicide prevention pol strategy. You know the government released a national suicide prevention strategy many years ago four five years ago.
