There have been protests across the country by the doctors over the last few days, triggered by the disgraceful beating up of a junior doctor in a government hospital in Kolkatta. This crime against a doctor, unfortunately, is not an isolated incident. Many such incidents have been reported across the country in government as well as private hospitals.
Doctors have expressed the feeling of being let down by society – while they have been trained to handle anxious patients & family members, how can they deal with violence? Just imagine the mental state of a doctor if he or she doesn’t feel secure in their workplace. What if the same happens to any of us – say a banker or a hotel manager or an IT professional?? At this rate, apart from learning very difficult subjects in medical college, they have to be trained in self-defence!!
As citizens, we may feel frustrated with our Indian healthcare system – but doctors are not the reason for the many issues which affect our healthcare system:
- Acute shortage of Doctors esp. in Government Hospitals – As of 2017, India had around 10 lakh registered allopathic doctors and with an assumed availability of 80%, the Government of India, has said that we have 0.62 doctors for every 1000 persons. This is lower than the WHO norm of 1 doctor for every 1000 persons. The average population served per government allopathic doctor is 11,039.
- Shortage of hospital beds – There are around 7.1 lakh hospital beds out of which 2.8 lakh are in the rural areas(which has 60% of India’s population). For rural, this translates to around 0.37 beds per 1000 people as against WHO norms of 3.5 beds per 1000 people!!
- Poor insurance coverage making healthcare expensive. The government has launched Ayushman Bharath recently which is a great move towards insurance coverage for the poor. Many states also have various programs to cater to this aspect of healthcare. However cost of treatment is still a big issue for many patients and they are forced to opt for non-optimal health treatments.
As you can see above, these issues are not because of our doctors!! They are doing their best with the hand they are dealt with. Healthcare outcomes in such a situation are not going to be ideal. In addition to that, medicine by its very nature cannot give a 100% probability of success – some diseases can be complex and outcomes depend on patient attributes. That doesn’t mean, that there is no medical negligence – but to blame everything that goes bad, on the doctor is very unfair and to resort to violence against the doctor is criminal!!
What the doctors need are as follows : a) Security in the hospitals b) Law to be strictly enforced for violence against doctors c) Awareness campaign to sensitize the citizens that Doctors need to be treated with a lot of respect. In my view the awareness campaign is critical because ultimately the community has to rise against any person who wants to harm the doctor. It is imperative that West Bengal and other state governments as well as the central government take up the issue of doctor safety on priority – otherwise, our healthcare system will regress instead of progressing!!
References:
https://www.cbhidghs.nic.in/WriteReadData/l892s/Chapter%205.pdf
gopaldevanahalli 