Indian doctors’ leaders demand national law to reduce violence in hospitals

The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has called for a nationwide law criminalising violence against doctors and imposing a minimum of seven years in prison, after an attack in West Bengal left two doctors requiring surgery.

The attack on 10 June, by relatives of a 75 year old man who had died at NRS Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, targeted junior doctors, one of whom needed a craniotomy for a fractured skull.

The incident led to widespread protests and a national boycott of all but emergency services by the country’s 800 000 doctors on 17 June.1 …