What do you do if your body goes on strike at the same time as the doctor? It’s happened in Bengal and it’s spreading only because a mob struck a doctor because he was not on strike at the time – He was doing his job. Junior doctors at AIIMS centers in Delhi, Mumbai, and other states also joined the protests on Friday. Their counterparts in hospitals and medical colleges of New Delhi, Odisha, Chandigarh, Goa, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra also held protests.
Now there are more wounds to heal, especially of the doctor who was injured in the Mob violence. Who will attend to him? And to the parts of bodies on strike, causing them physical, emotional, mental and most of all financial distress. It’s quite a mess and made worse by its politicization. Everything is political these days in Bengal, including the chance to live. Who is killing it?
Indeed nobody is on strike in Bihar, but 69 Children have died of encephalitis. Now, that’s a tragedy of great proportions. And if the docs there were to strike too, or they were beaten up because the children had died, the tragedy can be greater.
Doctors are beginning to quit, despite the high unemployment data released by the government, notably so after the election in the euphoria of victory and the data has already been forgotten by those who have secured employment in the nations highest lawmaking body.
Safety is what the doctors demand and rightly so perhaps. They pay a lot for their education, hoping to make a lot from their patients and their diagnosis via diagnostic tests to tally their balance sheets. If the patients beat them up for doing their job, and no protection mechanism is put in place, then that hypotheses will get punctured and it could have a backlash on the viability of Medical Education and indeed Health care as we know it in our country. That system is already feeling the strain of being Neet and tidy. But new ways are being found to fulfil the prophecies of Tom Peters Chaos Theory!
Life will go on if the doctors can get back to work and heal those on the verge of death or on the way there. But what kind of a life will it be for doctors? One of fear? They have a life to live too. Their lives too must go on. And therefore, there has to be a mechanism that works for both. Consumers have the consumer courts if need be, and Civil courts – It is after the event no doubt, but so is violence. The only difference is one is immediate and the other is such a long drawn out process it goes beyond the bounds of courtship. One could complete multiple medical degrees even with carryovers by the time the case is decided. But what protection does the doctor have? Other than a white coat and the badge of a noble professional? It will not get him the Nobel and cannot protect him from those with a black heart. The scale should always be balanced and that is what the docs are asking. Is it too much to ask? Will a law help? Maybe as a deterrent, but the doc will then perhaps have to spend more time in court than the hospital! Of course, there’s also the small matter of an apology.
