Doctor assaults trigger protests, renew security concerns at Telangana hospitals

Repeated incidents of violence against doctors at Telangana’s major teaching hospitals have raised concerns over workplace security. Recent incidents at Gandhi and Niloufer hospitals prompted protests, while doctors’ associations called for better security, functional helplines, CCTV coverage and stronger legal protection.

Hyderabad: The rising wave of workplace violence against doctors, especially junior residents who personally interact with patients and their relatives, has repeatedly caused outrage and statewide strikes.

Such attacks on medical professionals are most common at Osmania General Hospital, Niloufer Hospital, Gandhi Hospital, NIMS, and MGM Hospital in Warangal, all teaching hospitals that witness heavy patient inflow throughout the day and year.

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In June, a postgraduate doctor at Gandhi Hospital was physically assaulted by a patient’s woman attendant during an argument over routine blood sugar monitoring. The attack resulted in broken spectacles and a bleeding cut on the forehead, prompting an immediate boycott of duties by the Telangana Junior Doctors Association (T-JUDA).

Similarly, a few months ago, a resident doctor at Niloufer Hospital faced verbal abuse and physical manhandling by attendants after restricting entry into a sensitive ICU unit, which is a standard protocol.

In both instances, medical bodies like T-JUDA and the Healthcare Reforms Doctors Association (HRDA) condemned the security lapses, highlighting broken emergency helplines and missing CCTV coverage. They reiterated urgent demands for the strict implementation of the state’s Medicare Service Persons Act and maintained that frontline healthcare workers cannot function safely under constant threats of violence.