Doctors facing violence get security, legal support platform: What it offers

Delhi-based Ozone Pharma has launched a platform to help doctors facing threats, violence and medico-legal trouble. The move comes as doctors continue to report unsafe workplaces and seek stronger protection.

In Short

• IMA study found three in four doctors have faced violence
• AIIMS-linked survey showed most healthcare workers received threats while on duty
• Field teams will first approach gynaecologists before expanding to other specialities

Violence, threats and legal harassment are increasingly becoming part of the occupational risk doctors face in India. A study by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) had found that 75% of doctors have experienced violence at some point, while a 2026 survey of more than 1,500 healthcare workers by experts from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Vardhaman mahavir Medical College in delhi and VMMC found that 78.4% had faced threats while on duty and 58.2% did not feel safe at work.

Against this backdrop, a New Delhi-based pharma company has launched a first of its kind platform offering doctors security assistance, legal support and emotional wellbeing services when they face violence, threats or medico-legal trouble.

The initiative by Ozone Pharma is positioned as a support system rather than simply another security service.

It will provide personal security assistance in situations involving threats or manhandling, legal assistance in medico-legal matters and counselling for doctors dealing with the emotional fallout of such incidents, said company chairman and managing director S C Sehgal.

The company says its field teams will initially reach out to gynaecologists and subsequently expand the initiative to other specialities.

Dr Sanchita Dube, gynaecologist with Apollo Hospital in Noida, stressed that while healthcare professionals in major hospitals get the support required, those working in smaller establishments often bear the brunt of aggressive behaviour by patients’ kin when a medical situation is not favourable.

She recalled the case of a gynaecologist in Rajasthan who had died by suicide in 2022 after facing intense harassment and was reported to be a wrongful murder charge after a woman had died during childbirth due to post-partum haemorrhage under her care.

WHY THE SECURITY GAP MATTERS

The launch comes amid a longstanding debate over how doctors should be protected from violence. The IMA has been demanding a central law against violence in healthcare establishments and against doctors since 2015.

Several states already have laws dealing specifically with attacks on healthcare workers, but doctors' organisations have repeatedly argued that these provisions have not worked effectively because implementation and enforcement remain weak. A 2026 review of Maharashtra's law, for instance, found that of 636 attacks reported between 2016 and 2021, only 36 cases had been decided and four had ended in convictions.

Doctors have therefore continued to push for a central framework that would provide uniform protection across states. The demand, however, has not been universally accepted by policymakers and the Union health ministry had earlier abandoned the proposal after first initiating a move to draft a bill on the same.

A Supreme Court-appointed national task force in 2024, following the rape and murder of a resident doctor in Kolkata’s R G Kar Hospital, had also concluded that existing state laws and the penal provisions provided safeguards and did not recommend a separate central law.

Sehgal, meanwhile, said the idea grew out of three decades of working with doctors and described its purpose as “protecting the protectors”.

The larger concern also extends beyond individual doctors.

“When healthcare workers feel unsafe, the consequences can affect staffing, workplace morale and, ultimately, access to care for patients,” said a doctor.

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