The Indian government has given an ordinance that makes violence against healthcare workers a non-bailable offence, punishable by up to seven years imprisonment, amid concerns that the covid-19 pandemic has stirred an upsurge of such targeted violence. The ordinance—which amends India’s Epidemic Diseases Act 1897 and seeks to protect doctors, nurses, and paramedic and community health workers from harassment or physical injury—signals the government’s “zero tolerance” of violence against healthcare service personnel, officials said. The move, amid India’s rising covid-19 count, follows multiple incidents of violence and harassment of doctors and healthcare workers engaged in covid-19 care or contact tracing, and a demand from the Indian Medical Association (IMA) for protective legislation. The IMA said, “Covid-19 has made us acutely aware of our helplessness against mindless abuse and violence. Stigma and social boycott are everywhere. Harassment by the administration is nothing but violence by the state.” Resident doctors in some government hospitals in Delhi who have raised concerns about shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) have complained about hostile hospital administrations. In the central Indian town of Indore, healthcare workers engaged in contact tracing were attacked by a mob. On 19 April a mob in the city of Chennai attacked an ambulance carrying the body of a neurosurgeon who had died after contracting covid-19. “If dignity is denied even in death, our patience and restraint lose their value,” said the IMA, the country’s largest body of doctors ...
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