Love thy doctor!

When a news anchor for a popular Indian news channel enteredthe ICU of a Muzaffar Nagar hospital following encephalitis outbreak andreported live from there, heckling and blaming the doctor working in the ICU,she not only represented a new low in Indian journalism but also reflected thestatus of a doctor working in ‘New-Age India’. I was not surprised when thetreating doctor was blamed for everything that was supposedly going wrong. Thenews anchor represents a huge group of doctor critics who are there tosensationalize the shortcomings of the healthcare system and put the blame onthe only one visible in the entire system namely a doctor. There are otherdoctor haters ready to abuse, hit or humiliate a doctor. They do it becausedoctors are weak, vulnerable and hardly protected by law.

A doctor working in a crowded OPD of a governmenthospital/healthcare facility is left to the mercy of patients and attendants.He needs to be everything-quick, energetic, polite, accurate and helpful. Heneeds to have a soft heart, a cool head, and a calming hand. He should be agood listener, a great counselor and an able doer. With hundreds flocking hisOPD, he gets to be none of these idealists and ends up in writing prescriptionsand handling attendants. A doctor working in Accident and Emergency is morevulnerable and more stressed. Without a proper security cover, he faces theoutbursts of angry attendants who want their patient to be treated first,little understanding that the least sick patient may be the loudest.  A doctor is abused for not treating as perthe wish of the attendants. This happens in Govt. hospitals often, no wonder70% of Indian doctors as per a study face some kind of abuse in theirprofessional lives.

   

A doctor working in a typical Indian scenario is anoverburdened soul. As per the National Health Profile 2018, the doctorpopulation ratio in India is 1:11082 signifying a huge gap that exists in termsof the number of doctors that are available to the population. This gap isreally wide in states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. When the number of doctorsavailable in a hospital or a healthcare facility is less and patients are more,how will justice be done to the patients? To this add a chaotic governmenthealthcare facility, which is ill equipped andill-managed with poorinfrastructure. What will be the outcome? Why would you expect doctors to dowonders in these suboptimal conditions? In a country where healthcare needssignificant improvement, 10.6% of the total amount in an interim budget isallocated to defense, while only 2.2% is allocated to healthcare. Whose faultis this?

While offices of all public servants have a good securitycover and are well guarded, almost all government hospitals and otherhealthcare facilities have a poor or no security system in place. They are notequipped to control the crowd. Attendants at will can gate crash intohospitals, damage the equipments and physically assault healthcareprofessionals, more commonly the doctors.

The patients need be educated that doctors are not thepeople who can change the state of healthcare in our population. It requiresmajor policy decisions to bring about any change in the healthcare system. Thepeople at the helm need an understanding of the ground realities and an understandingof the difficulties faced by the doctors at all levels. While doctors should bemade accountable, the abuse against doctors should be dealt with seriously.Offenders should be punished.

Medicine is one of the most difficult professions. Itselaborate and exhaustive course structure taxes an individual physically andmentally. It is very demanding too. Doctors in the private sector might makegood money, but those in the government sector are paid meagerly, they exertmore and are available all the time for all types of patients. There aregreener pastures available for them elsewhere in the world, where they are paidhandsomely and treated in a dignified manner. If they chose to stay back andattend to poor and sick of your population, respect their choice. Your abuseand assault won’t make the system better; it will just drive them away.

In a study on the causes of violence against medicalprofessionals in India, besides other factors, the role of journalists and thehype caused by media was seen to be a major factor provoking violence against doctors.(Medicine and Society2017). There should be some curbs on journalists who barge into ICU’s andOperating rooms without consideration for the safety and security of patients,just for sensationalizing the news and threatening the doctors. These reportersneed to adhere to the rules and regulations and respect the privacy of doctorsand patients. As per the medicos legal action group, sensational media coveragedue to doctors alleged negligence precipitates attacks against doctors.

Innumerable acts of violence against doctors  arereported on a daily basis in India. Even apremier institution of the country like AIIMS –New Delhi is not spared. Doctorshave suffered grievous injuries because of assault by attendants; a lady doctorin Tuticorin was murdered by the attendants of a patient when they attacked herwith a sword. From Lancet to the streets of Kolkata there is expression ofanguish over the breakpoint to which the doctors have reached. Love thy doctorand  but make the system accountable byexerting a pressure on people at the helm. In the present scenario killing adoctor wont kill the ills of healthcare system because a doctor is as helplessas you all are!

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