This shouldn’t be construed as my personal sob story. The import of this piece is to tell you how we health workers feel when we are at the receiving end of attacks, often for no fault of ours.
Have you noticed that bashing up doctors and caregivers has become the norm rather than the exception in Kashmir? Aren’t we reading stuff about doctors being assaulted at the workplace regularly? Has it been normalised in the absence of deterring laws?
I realised this a fortnight back when I became the latest ‘hit and abused’ candidate. Yes, a woman.
I have been working at Srinagar’s Chest Disease Hospital for the past two years, starting a few months after Covid-19 interrupted our lives and living. The hospital has been a first responder of sorts while dealing with Covid-positive patients. In the past two years, doctors here have seen many critical patients recovering from acute pneumonia and walking home healthy. Also true is that a few did not make it.
The doctors, paramedics and allied staff have been doing whatever it takes to tend to patients and, needless to say, have a role in their recovery.
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Anyway, back to my story. So that day, January 5, it being a Covid-designated hospital, there was a huge flow of patients. All doctors were busy treating patients under the supervision of Dr Naveed Nazir Shah, head of the department, and other seniors. Dr Naveed last year briefed Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the Covid situation in his Mann ki Baat radio programme.
So it was my turn to cover the 24-hour control room at the hospital that day. At 10 in the morning, leaving my two young kids back home, I set off for the afternoon and night shift. We usually have night shifts every fourth or fifth day but I wish there was no such duty. That night left me traumatised — mentally, physically and emotionally. Not just me, but my whole family is in pain and trauma.
Being an RMO (a resident medical officer) I generally don’t have direct interaction with patients. My job is to look after administrative issues like availability of paramedical staff, oxygen facility, drugs, heating arrangements, etc, essentially the logistics part of it. At around 10 pm, barely minutes after I had gone into my room, an attendant stormed in. Without uttering a word, he started to slap and hit me on the head. He pulled me by the hair and tried to drag me out. All this while, he kept shouting and abusing me. I tried asking what got him riled up but he kept on hitting me. It was then that I started to shout for help. The security guards rushed in on hearing my cries. I was numb and in tears. For a moment, I had a complete blackout.
A security guard tried to pull him back but he too was hit. He suffered a fracture in an arm. Later, more people intervened and separated the attacker from us.
I don’t remember how I gathered the courage to call up my husband who, after sensing I wasn’t fine, drove to the hospital. On his way, he called Dr Nazir, who in turn alerted the local police. The police reached very soon and arrested the attacker.
In the meantime, I was taken to another hospital for further treatment. My face and head were swollen and my hand bruised. Luckily X-rays did not show any major injuries, though the emotional hurt was much more and will take time to heal.
The fear of what would have become of my kids had something serious happened to me is gripping me even now. I feel I am not the same person after the assault.
I came to know later that the two persons — one of them had gone totally berserk — were agitated because their ailing father had passed away. The deceased, more than 70 years old, was a stage 4 malignancy patient. The attendants were already told in detail about the prognosis. Despite being terminally ill, they wanted to take him home against the doctor’s consent. He expired in the hospital that night. The furious attendants seemed to be in a hurry to take him home to a distant Uri village in the dead of the night, apparently to make sure his family, which might have gathered at their home, had the last rendezvous.
But life and death are up to God and we have no control over it. How can a hospital release a critically ailing patient and allow him to die on a road or in a harness? No doctor or hospital administrator would allow that.
On that day the patient was being taken care of by doctors and nursing staff. If he would have stabilised a bit, the seniors would have told us to send him home. We had even spared a bulk cylinder in case he was fit to survive the journey home. It was God’s will that he did not live for more days.
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In the end, my limited point through sharing this story is to convey that healthcare providers do their best to cure the ailing. They work tirelessly and at great risk (including highly transmissible Covid-19) to treat patients and all they want in return is a bit of empathy and compassion. Be sure all doctors don’t want rewards and recognition, but, yes, a little acknowledgement — sometimes a smile, a kind gesture, a positive vibe, or a pat on the shoulder — will keep them going.
They certainly don’t deserve a slap, a punch, or a bludgeon.
Those who work in hospitals are humans; their families, old parents, and small kids do wait for their return.
The morning after I was struck with blows, my kids were inconsolable, looking at the marks on my face and head, trying to figure out why I was hit. I haven’t been able to find answers to their innocent questions.
Nor have I been able to sleep properly since then. The cruel face starts to pop in my head when I think about the incident.
Now that the culprits are arrested, I want them to face the law. They shouldn’t go unpunished. It is not only for my closure but, if justice is served in this case, it will have a deterring effect in the future.
Looking forward, I want the government and health policy mandarins to ensure such barbaric and inhuman incidents are not repeated anywhere in Kashmir or the rest of the country.
Doctors should be safe at their workplaces, irrespective of their gender.
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