The Supreme Court of India gave all doctors who had been protesting the rape and killing of a female medic last month until Tuesday to return to work. If they didn’t, the court threatened to take “adverse action.”
In protest of the woman, whose death was discovered on August 9 in a classroom at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, in the eastern state of West Bengal, where she was a trainee, hundreds of doctors throughout the country have taken time off from work.
Federal police announced last week that the former college principal had also been taken into custody for suspected graft, after the arrest of a volunteer police officer for the same offense.
Additionally, physicians have been calling for improved facilities at government-run hospitals, which they claim are devoid of basic amenities like staff rest areas and security.
On Monday, the Supreme Court declared that physicians who resumed their job by Tuesday night would not face any negative consequences.
“The needs of the general community, whom they are supposed to serve, cannot be ignored by the resident doctors,” Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, who presided over a three-judge panel of the court, declared.
In addition, the court ordered the West Bengal government to install CCTV cameras and provide separate duty rooms and restrooms for male and female staff in order to allay doctors’ fears.
Over the course of the weekend, thousands of Indians living abroad staged protests against the attack in over 130 places around 25 nations, including the US, Japan, Australia, and Europe.
The court had already established a task force on hospital safety to make recommendations for measures to guarantee the protection of medical personnel. The court took up the topic of its own volition in response to the incident’s anger.
Women’s rights activists claim that the incident has brought attention to the fact that, despite the introduction of stricter regulations following the 2012 gang rape and murder of a woman in a moving bus in Delhi, women are still victims of sexual assault in India.
