Work Place Violence on Nurses and Doctors in India: Review Paper

INTRODUCTION: India has the second largest population in the world, where healthcare is one of the growing fields. Instances of patient's relatives assaulting the treating doctor are a common scenario all over India. Violence against nurses is a complex and persistent occupational hazard facing the nursing profession. Paradoxically, the job sector with the mission to care for people appears to be at the highest risk of workplace violence. Nurses are among the most assaulted workers in the any workforce. Too frequently, nurses are exposed to violence ? primarily from patients, patients? families, and visitors. This violence can take the form of intimidation, harassment, stalking, beatings, stabbings, shootings, and other forms of assault. According to the data of the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS), USA, workplace assaults and violent acts occur in the health sector more often than in any other industry. Several independent studies all over the world have reported the prevalence of workplace violence among physicians and health workers to be 56%-75%. Patients and their relatives are the most common perpetrators of non-fatal workplace violence. However, violence and abuse is also committed by hospital co-workers, particularly emotional abuse and sexual harassment. (OSHA 2018) Psychological consequences resulting from violence may include fear, frustration, lack of trust in hospital administration, and decreased job satisfaction. Incidences of violence early in nurses? careers are particularly problematic as nurses can become disillusioned with their profession. Violence not only affects nurses? perspectives of the profession, but it also undermines recruitment and retention efforts which, in a time of a pervasive nursing shortage, threatens patient care. Aruna Shanbaug lay in a near vegetative state for 42 years in a cubicle in Mumbai's King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital, where she had worked as a nurse and where she was sexually assaulted in 1973. Columnist Bachi Karkaria pieces together her story. Unaware of her unwanted fame, the 67-year-old became India's metaphor for the right to life. In one more of the ironies that mocked Aruna Shanbaug over the decades, the judgment allowed for euthanasia in rare cases - it had been illegal in India - but denied it to the woman who had been at the centre of it all. On 16 May, she was hooked up to a ventilator in KEM's acute care unit following severe pneumonia. Mercifully, her body seized its own release two days later. (BBC News 2015) In January 2018 at Maulana Azad Medical College in New Delhi, doctors who had treated a pregnant woman who died from respiratory failure were attacked by a mob of about 50 of her relatives, who threw chairs, saline bottles and equipment at them, doctors said. Terrified staffers avoided the melee by locking themselves into a nearby room until help arrived. (The Hindu 2018) Senior AIIMS doctor accused of slapping colleague submits apology; healthcare services still hit as strike continues: A senior doctor of AIIMS New Delhi whose alleged assault on a resident doctor triggered a strike at the premier hospital today tendered a written apology and proceeded on leave on the directions of an internal probe panel. The doctor, who is heading a department at AIIMS, appeared before the inquiry committee which was constituted after the protesting resident doctors demanded his immediate suspension. The resident doctors, who have been on strike since last evening, paid no heed to the AIIMS Director's appeal to call off their protest and return to work. In a letter to AIIMS Director, the Resident Doctor has alleged that the senior doctor slapped him in front of attendees, nursing staff and colleagues and that he was depressed now. (The New Indian Express 28th Feb 2018) In Bhadrak an angry over the death of a minor girl patient at Bhadrak District Headquarters Hospital on Tuesday, relatives of the deceased ransacked the ward and assaulted a doctor and two other staffers. A nurse and a male attendant sustained injuries in the attack. The protestors alleged that the girl had died due to negligence of the doctor. The relatives also sat on dharna with the girl's body. Hospital authorities claimed that the girl was treated with medicines immediately and kept under observation. The deceased's father narrated a different story, though. Her father, Avimanyu Malik, said she was admitted to the hospital at 9.45 pm. ?There was no doctor in the ward for her treatment. The nurse in the ward injected pain-killers into her body. Despite our repeated requests, none of the doctors came to examine my daughter. She died at 4 am, ? he said. Malik alleged that the DHH authorities didn?t provide any opportunity to the family to shift the girl to SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack. Meanwhile, Malik lodged an FIR against the DHH authorities with Bhadrak Town Police. Additional District Medical Officer (ADMO) of Bhadrak DHH, Dr. Pradeep Kumar Khuntia, sai