Dr. Rizwan Roomi
In the hallowed corridors of our hospitals-meant to heal, comfort and save lives-an unsettling silence often follows the noise of violence. That silence isn’t healing. It is haunting. Recently, Jammu & Kashmir witnessed two alarming incidents that have shaken the medical fraternity and ignited a moral debate across the region: What happens when our saviours-our doctors-are attacked and in response, the hospitals close their doors? Who pays the price then?
On July 16, 2025, in the emergency ward of Government Medical College (GMC) Jammu, chaos erupted when a critically ill patient succumbed to his condition. Distraught and angry, the attendants turned their grief into violence. A female postgraduate doctor was kicked in the abdomen by a patient’s relative-a disturbing act caught on CCTV. Her colleague too faced physical assault. The footage circulated widely on social media, exposing not just the vulnerability of our healthcare workers, but the raw emotion of families battling helplessness and loss.
The next day, junior doctors at GMC Jammu went on strike, suspending routine operations and scaling down emergency care. Only a few senior consultants tried to manage the overwhelming patient load. The result: patients turned away, surgeries deferred and wards overwhelmed.
Just a few days later, on July 23, a similar scene played out at SMHS Hospital in Srinagar. A doctor on duty was punched by an attendant and knocked to the floor-again, within hospital premises, while tending to patients. A profession built on trust and service was reduced to fear and fractured morale.
These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re symptoms of a much deeper problem.
The Unseen War Inside the Wards
Doctors are not immune to pressure, grief, or fatigue. They operate in high-stakes environments, juggling life-and-death decisions, administrative shortcomings and a swelling number of patients. When something goes wrong, they’re not just the first responders-they’re often the first blamed.
While the public often sees doctors as privileged professionals, the truth-especially in overburdened government hospitals-is starkly different. Many work 18-20 hour shifts, often without proper rest, food or even safety.
Yet, when a patient dies, especially in emergency settings, families-already consumed by grief and frustration-sometimes lash out. And doctors become the punching bag, quite literally.
But what complicates this narrative is the strike. Understandably, doctors demand protection, dignity, and swift justice. They are not demanding luxury-just the basic right to work without the fear of being assaulted. Still, a strike at a public hospital is not without cost. Hundreds of patients, especially those from remote areas or economically weaker sections, are denied treatment. Some suffer in silence; others deteriorate. A few may even die.
This is where our collective conscience must pause and reflect: How do we protect those who heal us without punishing those who need healing?
A System Under Strain
The repeated incidents of assault on doctors reveal serious systemic gaps:
Lack of Security: Most public hospitals in India do not have sufficient guards, surveillance, or entry restrictions. In critical areas like ICUs or emergency wards, multiple attendants often crowd, adding chaos to crisis.
Poor Communication: Families often complain of being kept in the dark-left uninformed about treatment progress or prognosis. This confusion and emotional unrest can quickly escalate into confrontation.
Weak Legal Enforcement: Though several states have laws criminalizing violence against medical professionals, few perpetrators are arrested, fewer prosecuted and hardly any punished.
The Emotional Duality: Doctors and Patients
Doctors deserve our utmost respect. They are the backbone of our healthcare system. Especially in government hospitals, they serve the masses selflessly, often under extremely challenging circumstances. It is painful to see a profession so noble-so sacred-being vilified or violated.
Yet patients, too, are not always wrong. They come to hospitals not just with prescriptions, but with prayers. When they see delays, miscommunication, or loss, it triggers despair. And when that despair finds no outlet, it turns dangerous.
Violence, however, is never the answer. It solves nothing. It only destroys the delicate bond of trust that holds the entire healthcare system together.
A Way Forward: From Protests to Protection
If we want to avoid another GMC or SMHS-type tragedy, action-not just outrage-is needed. Here’s what we must do:
* Implement the Medical Protection Act nationwide with urgency. Declare hospitals as protected zones with legal immunity against any physical or verbal assault on doctors.
* Deploy trained hospital security staff in all sensitive wards. Restrict the number of attendants per patient, especially in emergency departments.
* Establish patient liaison teams in every hospital-trained professionals who can explain medical conditions, delays, or procedures to families in non-technical language.
* Create fast-track courts for cases involving violence against medical staff to ensure swift justice and deterrence.
* Ensure continuity of critical services during strikes. Hospitals must develop contingency plans where minimal emergency care is maintained by senior staff even during protest actions.
* Inculcate empathy and communication skills as part of medical training, so that young doctors can better manage patient emotions in high-stress scenarios.
A Call for Compassion, Not Confrontation
The image of a young doctor-tearful, bruised, yet back on duty the next day-should shame us as a society. The image of an elderly patient lying on a stretcher outside a locked ward should break our hearts just the same.
We cannot allow our hospitals to become battlegrounds. Nor can we afford to let strikes cripple lives that hang in the balance. This is not a choice between doctors and patients. It is a call to protect both.
Let us rebuild that fragile bridge of trust-between caregiver and care-seeker-with honesty, safety, and empathy at its core. Only then will our hospitals return to what they were always meant to be: places of healing, not heartbreak.
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