'Declare hospitals as safe zones, give compensation to victim's family'

All hospitals across the country should be declared safe zones like airports so that doctors can work without fear, Indian Medical Association (IMA) chief Dr R V Asokan said on Friday. This is one of the five demands of the IMA, which has declared a 24-hour nationwide withdrawal of non-emergency medical services (from 6 am on Saturday to 6 am on Sunday) to protest against the alleged rape and killing of a trainee woman doctor and vandalism at a state-run medical college in Kolkata. "Airports are safe zones with a three-layer security, so at least in major hospitals, there has to be a security protocol and they should be declared as safe zones as that will entitle them for a mandatory security protocol," Asokan told PTI. Secondly, there should be a central law to check violence on healthcare workers, he said. Asokan said 25 states have laws against attacks on doctors and hospitals but there have been no convictions so far. These laws are mostly ineffective on the ground and do not .