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New Delhi, June 17, 2019:
Doctors across the country are protesting the violence against their colleagues in West Bengal. This takes me back in time to the movements organized by the IMA to bring to the attention of the nation the plight of the medical profession.
Cases of violence have particularly increased in the past few years with alarming frequency all over the country; hospitals and medical establishments are ransacked. This latest incident has only added to the growing list. The risk of physical assault has created fear for their safety and security among doctors.
What is worse is that an attempt is often made to put the blame on the medical profession itself as being the cause of this violence. Doctors are professionals. Becoming a doctor is not easy. The road to becoming a doctor is long one; five and half years of gruelling undergraduate MBBS studies, 3 years of postgraduation and then 3 years of super specialization. There are no short cuts to success in medicine. Being a doctor demands lot of hard work, long hours, dedication and personal sacrifice because for the doctor, the patient comes first.
No doctor practices medicine with an intention to harm the patient. But, despite all care, sometimes errors may happen inadvertently. To err is human and every doctor is likely to make mistakes. Where is the accountability for the civic authorities for failure to maintain facilities or penal provisions, for that matter, in cases of civic negligence, which are being reported almost every day?
Yet, everybody, including the general public is a silent spectator to the violence against doctors. The then Health Minister, Shri JP Nadda had constituted an Inter-Ministerial Committee, which had promised to soon enact a central Act for violence against doctors. But sadly that remained a promise on paper only.
The present Health Minister has again given an assurance. But will this assurance come to fruition? Or, are they mere words to appease the agitating doctors? This would be most unfortunate. The general public is a direct stakeholder in this. It is they who suffer because violence against doctor may result in death of other patients who may be unattended. Doctors cannot discharge their duties in an atmosphere of fear. It is therefore in the their interest too that such cases of physical violence against doctors must be condemned in the strongest words and must not be allowed to happen
We say “enough is enough”.
The ministries directly concerned are Health, Ayush, Home and Law. A solution to violence cannot be found by any one of them acting alone. The entire cabinet should meet and bring out an ordinance for violence against doctors at the earliest on the lines of one enacted in 19 states. Violence against doctors should be made a non-bailable offence punishable with imprisonment up to 14 years.
We become doctors to serve the community and not to harm the community. We are not against accountability but no one can be allowed to take law in their hands. We seek the intervention of the Prime Minister in this very sensitive issue.
Dr KK Aggarwal
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