India is At War With its Doctors. And the Casualty is Trust

A survey done by IMA in 2015 showed that almost 75% of the doctors have faced violence in their careers.

A few days ago the nation celebrated doctors day to pay homage to Dr BC Roy. Especially this year, I found that it brought no cheer to my fraternity. People were just going through the motions wishing the doctors a happy doctor's day, what with violence against doctors becoming a daily routine making most of us sick to stomach. The malaise really runs deep.

A survey done by IMA in 2015 showed that almost 75% of the doctors have faced violence in the line of duty sometime in their careers. And this figure is increasing by every passing day. The most painful aspect of this all is that the junior doctors are first in the line of fire. At the rate it is going, by the time you read this, at least three more doctors would have been assaulted and 3 more medical establishments vandalized.

Violence With Political Backing

It appears that India is at war with its own doctors. Most of these incidents occur in the intensive care setting when the outcome of the treatment is not successful or not as expected. Studies reveal that the underlying reason more often than not, is the high bills which become an ugly contentious issue especially if the patient dies. A very disturbing trend seems to be emerging and that is involvement of local politicians who have vested interest in inciting mob violence. People take law in their own hand with impunity because they are assured protection by these local politicians.

Violence apart, doctors are being dragged to the court of law at the drop of a hat.

According to a study done in 2016 by a Supreme Court lawyer, there is a 110% increase in medical negligence cases filed every year.

An endless harassment begins as the complaint against the doctors can be filed simultaneously in more than 10 different fora including consumer commissions, civil courts, criminal courts, State medical councils, Indian medical council, human rights commission to name a few

Law to Protect Doctors a Toothless Tiger

The existing law to protect doctors and medical establishments has been adopted by 20 states but has proven to be a toothless tiger. So far there have been only two convictions under this act.

The impression that has been systematically and assiduously created and then cultivated, and by no small measure by a section of media only concerned with their TRP, is that the doctors in private establishments are looters and those in the government establishments shun their duty. Nothing could be farther from truth. Doctor being the face of medical care is identified with every thing that is perceived as wrong , especially the high cost of treatment which is primarily due to expensive medicines, high cost of consumables and equipment, over which the treating doctor has no control at all.

What needs to be realized is that fallout of all this is going to be extremely detrimental to the health of the nation as a whole.

The biggest casualty has been the doctor patient relationship. A relationship which from time immemorial was a fiduciary relationship, is fast turning into an adversarial relationship right from the word go.

The credibility of doctors is at an all time low in the eyes of public at large and every doctor has started seeing a potential litigant in the patient who comes to him. Compassion, an essential ingredient of care of the sick, has become passe for obvious reasons.

For every one such incident of assault on the doctor, according to an estimate, one hundred doctors would stop taking complex, complicated and emergency patients. Hence the patients who deserve the medical care the most would be denied the same and would be forced to bear the brunt in an extremely helpless situation.

Parents are discouraging their kids to take up medicine as profession in India. Already, in the school, students are not picking up biology as a subject and the enrollment has fallen to less than 1/4th as compared to the last decade.

Those who can afford to send their wards abroad are wittingly or unwittingly contributing to brain drain, eventually leading to abysmal quality of doctors who remain here. You are right, the Indian public would suffer.

Undoubtedly, there would be a few black sheep in the medical profession, as is true for any other profession, but how fair is it to paint the whole profession with the same brush.