Ever seen someone standing up for injustice meted out to a doctor? Ever heard the woes of the families whose children are resident doctors? But we judge the capabilities of a doctor who is suspended without finding facts. We read about the doctors who are asked to resign if they want security. We are not empathetic towards a doctor who is molested. People say doctors in India are treated like gods, but in the event of the patient’s death they are beaten up like dog. The problem is people will not knock the person who does black magic, but they become violent with a doctor who has saved several lives.
There are so many incidents of assaults against doctors in both government and private hospitals. In fact, even if the ward boy or nurse are not performing their duty, the duty doctor is accused. After the recent assaults on doctors, not only in Maharashtra but in the country, a lot of young doctors are sharing the thought that – “after studying for years, if some patients and their relatives think it is their right to assault the doctor, parent’s might as well not make their children doctors”. In fact, an online petition was created – “Parents: Don’t let your children become doctors in India” which was signed by 84500 supporters.
The case in Maharashtra where a doctor was beaten black and blue, called for a strike of the doctors. The Bombay high court slammed the doctors for resorting to mass leave to protest against assaults by patients’ relatives. It even asked them to resign and stay at home if they are so scared. That’s thing Doctors cannot strike because they are born to be compassionate and have to bear brunt of the goondas who think they know more than the specialists. This high court which said doctors don’t have security in 2016, asked them not to go on “strike like factory men”.
The problem is the doctors’ union should not go on strike. But whenever it is a mistake of wardboy or nurse or management, their unions or politicians protect them with utmost care. Maximum attacks occur when the doctors are providing emergency services and the patient’s story gets the most coverage. What about the doctor who is beaten up or suspended or given a memo? What about the family of the doctor who is waiting for them to return home sound and safe? At times, the media reports do not even check about the disease and blame the doctor. But when a doctor is punished incidents which are as old as the ice age surface out of nowhere. Nobody goes through the patient’s history before writing against or beating up the doctor. Recently a leading newspaper in Telugu states reported a patient whose was suffering from acute tuberculosis as asthma. A video of a doctor being beaten not only by the patient relatives but the police in Hyderabad surfaced. If the police decides to join the mob, the doctors are bound to protest.
In fact when it comes to assaults, a lot of them are not aware that there is a law that exists which protects the doctors. The Doctors’ Protection Act, 2010, has stringent provisions, but the act is hardly being implemented by the police in cases of violence against doctors. The act makes any violence against a doctor in a medical care institution non-bailable, and has a provision for three years’ imprisonment with rupees 50,000 fine. It ensures that the attackers will be made to pay twice the compensation of the damage caused to the institution. The Supreme Court had clearly laid down protocols of providing security for doctors commensurate with the number of ICU beds.
People should realize that doctors are not gods and not all patients can survive. Stop vandalizing nursing homes. It takes minimum 10 years to become a specialist. If such incidents keep happening, doctors might as well start practicing defensive medicine. A lot of them consider doctors as money minting machines who are ruthless to patients. Stop stereotyping the doctors and this is not going to help the society in any way. It only worsens the doctor patient relationship.
