violence against doctors ..petition

The Recent spurt of attacks on Doctors and on hospitals and clinics is alarming.
If people start taking the law into their own hands and mobs start administering justice as they deem fit then it is a sorry state for a country like India.

It means anarchy has set in and this sorry state would spread to every field shortly.

The Medical community in India has been contributing its mite for the present health status of the country and its demoralization by such occurrences will reflect on this.

Every Physician needs safety for doing his work and it is the primary responsibility of the Government to protect him

The Medical Protection Act has been passed by many states expressively only for this purpose.

In spite of that the spate of recent attacks on doctors not only by damaging their property but by bodily injury is unacceptable in any civilized country.

Public anger and emotions may be the reasons given for such acts but if a mistake has been committed by any medical professional or hospital there are legal avenues to investigate the same and punish the guilty.

The present situation of mob inquisitions and violence is not befitting to our nation.

The Medical protection act has been passed by several states expressly for the purpose of protecting the physician and his clinic or hospital from violence

But We hardly have examples of guilty people who do this being punished under the medical protection act, if this has been done it would acted as a deterrent for such acts in the future .

The supreme court order that no doctor can refuse any patient in an emergency and has to offer first aid puts the onus on physicians to treat cases for which his center may not be equipped or he is not professionally skilled to handle (for example a defrillator may not be available in every clinic to treat a patient who may have a cardiac arrest and he may die in the clinic before he is referred to a tertiary care specialty center

 If any such mishap occurs in such cases again the doctor is considered to have committed negligence and many times has to face crowd anger and later legal consequences for negligence!.

Medical science accepts the possibility of unexpected complications for example a patient to whom an allergy test has been done for a particular drug as per guidelines can still encounter a fatal anaphylactic shock though rarely, this would still be considered as medical negligence though after expert opinion the doctor may come unscathed the damage to his reputation has already been done or he may have suffered violence from the relatives by then.

Quackery is carried on in our country with ease and the rules have been made flexible for cross specialty practice,

Health authorities close their eyes on such Practioners who are also considered as modern medical doctors and the crowd does not differentiate between them and qualified doctors, these ill trained quacks add to the negative image of the profession.

The quality of drugs prescribed in the country is not consistent as there are lax regulations and monitoring by Drug control authorities, the use of such drugs by any doctor can produce complications for which again he would be blamed

The media too instead of delivering facts in many instances succumb to sensationalism and induce crowd anger, they hardly make any effort to present the version from the physicians side ,they also d ignore the  achievements of the medical profession .

One has to remember that in such a vast country like India with such a huge population and great poverty reasonable and economic medical care both primary and tertiary has been possible only because of the unstinted efforts of this community ,today India is one of the most economic for medical care comparable to many countries

If there are genuine cases where doctors are negligent there are plenty of avenues wherein the affected public can raise their allegation, they can request an inquiry from the Grievance cell of local IMA branch, they can file a police case against the doctor or file a consumer grievance case where it would be investigated and due justice given,

We support this as it is a fair way to punish the guilty

But what is happening today is taking over of the law by any disgruntled crowd and bodily harm

and obstruction of work by a doctor

The state should not allow this to happen.

Anarchy cannot be encouraged

Hence we request the authorities to kindly address this sorry state of affairs

We demand justice from this unfair situation which is increasing day by day We insist that a fair hearing be given to any case of negligence and no doctor is subjected to humiliations before this is done We hope our pleas are heard by the concerned.