Mumbai On the sixth death anniversary of Aruna Shanbaug, a nurse who was in a state of comatose for 42 years after being raped and strangled by a ward boy at the KEM Hospital, activists came together to demand better working conditions for female healthcare workers.
Years after the assault on Shanbaug in 1973, that left her in a vegetative state, not much has changed in terms of safety and security for nurses and other female healthcare workers in urban as well as rural parts of the country, activists said, in an online event on Wednesday organised by the Innovative Alliance for Public Health (IAPH), a group working to strengthen nursing services.
“Even today, one may not feel very safe while walking through the KEM Hospital corridors. There is also little thought given to the locations of the changing rooms for nurses and doctors. They have also not given much thought to the security of nurses and healthcare workers when they access these rooms,” said Dr Swati Rane, vice president of Clinical Nursing Research Society, Mumbai.
“Access to the bathrooms is another major issue. Living conditions in the nursing hostels are worse than in store rooms with leaking pipes and rodent infestations. It is time for the nurses to stand up and demand their security and safety,” she said.
IAPH members said that people often connect Shanbaug’s case with the euthanasia debate, but her case is much more about violence at the workplace.
“These hospitals are massive structures, often like a maze. Many of the areas are poorly lit and many parts of these structures are very unsafe for women,” said Dr Maya John, assistant professor at the Delhi University, who is also associated with the United Nurses of India.
“Public hospitals are also places of a lot of content and friction because of the huge footfall of patients and shortage of nurses and other staff. Workplace violence is therefore rampant in many forms in hospitals,” she said.
Shanbaug was changing in a dingy basement of the hospital building when she was sexually assaulted. “Such incidents underline the employer’s apathy and complicity. These conditions are created by an apathetic administration that does not value the safety of their employees,” said John, adding that very little has changed despite it being the 21st century.
“Nursing staff are overworked, underpaid and cases of workplace violence are rampant. We need to keep talking about these issues and shape the discourse to bring about changes,” she said.