The Government Medical College Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram, reels not just from equipment shortage and paucity of funds, but has been plagued by serious safety violations. Sexual abuse of a woman bystander in trauma ICU, molestation bid on a woman staff and a nursing student, assaults against doctors, including women, figure among the safety breaches recorded in the medical college in the past 9 years, as per the information provided by the hospital administration in response to an RTI query filed by Onmanorama.

The administration has recorded 62 violations between 2016 and 2025, which include instances of theft, impersonation, sexual assault and attack on medical staff. Records with the hospital show that there was a complaint of sexual abuse from a woman when she stayed in the hospital as the bystander of her husband, who was undergoing treatment in the trauma ICU in January 2023. 

In another incident of abuse, a mentally ill child, who was with a patient, was abused in ward 16. In February 2023, a woman doctor was physically assaulted by a group of bystanders. The complaint of sexual assault against a nursing staff member was reported in January 2019. A female staff member was sexually abused inside the ENT lift in March 2017, documents show. Onmanorama spoke to former authorities regarding these incidents, who said that the complaints were forwarded to the police, and cases were registered.

Assaults against doctors were recorded eight times in the medical college. The document shows that the women doctors were also subjected to assaults. The latest incident was reported in June 2025, when a woman doctor was assaulted by a patient's bystander. In January 2025, another female doctor was assaulted. 

Many of the assaults happened following the demise of the patient. When a patient died in the Ortho ICU in 2023, the doctor was assaulted. In a similar incident at MICU, the son of a deceased patient assaulted the doctor. An attack on a PG resident by the woman's husband had triggered massive outrage in 2022. 

Dr Merry Francis Kallory, a neurosurgeon, was assaulted by one Senthil Kumar when she informed him about his wife Shubha's death. He kicked the doctor in her stomach, and she collapsed in pain and had to be admitted to the hospital. The medical college police had booked him under sections dealing with outraging the modesty of a woman and for voluntarily causing hurt. 

"It was really traumatic for her. We had to convince her so much to get her back to the profession. She even thought of quitting. Thankfully, she was back and completed her residency. The safety violations in the government medical college are a matter of utmost concern. It affects both the patients and the doctors," a former superintendent of Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital said.

Dr Mohan Roy, who had served as the Resident Medical Officer for eight years in Thiruvananthapuram Medical College, said that often the medical colleges deal with enormous patient load and key aspects like security and crowd management are neglected.

 "We see advancements in equipment and health care, but security in medical colleges is often ignored. There should be a system of deploying trained industrial security forces in colleges and upgrading surveillance and regulating access points," he said, adding that compassionate health care is often prioritised in government medical colleges. 

The medical college reported a case of impersonation in 2022 when a man posed as a doctor and treated the patients. Health Minister Veena George recently convened a meeting to enhance safety in medical colleges and said that regular space audits will be done to ensure the safety of employees.