Sleepless Nights, and Silent Tears: Inside the System That Broke a Cardiologist
A cardiology resident’s wife exposes GB Pant Hospital’s toxic duty culture, alleging 36-hour shifts, humiliation, and ignored RTIs on illegal working hours
Delhi: In a detailed letter addressed to the Department of Cardiology, GB Pant Hospital, Dr. Rishu Sinha has pleaded for humane consideration of her husband’s situation. “He has been suffering from sleep deprivation, burnout, exploitation, and humiliation due to 36-hour continued duty causing mental and physical tiredness,” she wrote, adding that the nature of work assigned to him was “minimal” and “unsuitable for his course.”
According to Dr. Sinha, the relentless and unregulated duty hours forced her husband — who had dreamt all his life of becoming a cardiologist — to take the extreme step of resigning. “I am worried that if his resignation is accepted without proper counselling, it may further harm his mental health,” she added in her letter.
Dr. Sinha had earlier filed two Right to Information (RTI) applications — No. GBP&H/R/2025/60034 dated 13.09.2025 and GBP&H/R/2025/60041 dated 12.10.2025 — seeking details about duty-hour regulations, the actual duties performed by her husband, and the hospital’s compliance with the 1992 Residency Rules issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Those directives clearly state that resident doctors must not work beyond 48 hours per week or 12 hours at a stretch.
However, she alleges that despite the RTIs falling under the “48-hour reply” category, the hospital has failed to respond. “It is unfortunate that institutions like GB Pant Hospital have no faith in the law of the land, as the 1992 rules are not followed and the RTI Act is not honoured at all,” her letter states.
Mental Health and Systemic Failure
The issue comes amid growing concern over the mental health of resident doctors across India. The National Task Force on Mental Health and Well-being of Medical Students (2024) — constituted by the National Medical Commission (NMC) — has warned that excessive working hours and toxic training environments are leading to alarming levels of depression, burnout, and even suicides among medical trainees.
The report recommends mandatory rest after night duties, monitoring of resident working hours, and access to psychological counselling — measures rarely enforced in most government hospitals.
In a 2024 petition, the Supreme Court also sought responses from the Centre, states, and the NMC over the “inhuman working hours” of resident doctors, asking why the 1992 rules were not being implemented.
‘Hospitals Must Be Held Accountable’
Dr. Sinha’s letter is not just a personal plea but a larger indictment of medical training culture in India. “GB Pant Hospital must take responsibility for the outcome of excessive duty hours and ensure the wellness of its students,” she writes. She has appealed to the administration to allow her husband a one-month “cooling period” with humanly working-hour duty and counselling before deciding on his resignation.
The Delhi Medical Association (DMA), responding to her letter, has reportedly raised concerns over the “inhumane working conditions” at GB Pant Hospital and urged the authorities to probe the matter.
Larger Picture: Resident Doctors and the Silent Crisis
Resident doctors form the backbone of India’s public health system — yet their training often doubles as bonded labour, with grueling 30–40-hour duties, no weekly offs, and little mental health support.
A recent survey by the Federation of All India Medical Associations (FAIMA) found that over 70 percent of resident doctors reported symptoms of burnout, while one in five admitted to having sought mental health help in the past year.
Experts have warned that such exploitative work conditions not only endanger young doctors’ lives but also compromise patient safety. “A fatigued doctor is a risk to themselves and their patients,” said a senior cardiologist from AIIMS, speaking on condition of anonymity.
