Saturday, July 12, 2008

An opinion on recent strike in medical sector


There was a breaking news yesterday evening reconciliation between the Government and the medical council. So after two days of closure of all services except the emergency one the hospitals and other medical outfits will start full operation from today. Families who were suffering because of unavailability of medical services must have taken a sigh of relief. Newspapers showed ailing people lying helpless before hospitals and nursing homes while doctors turned deaf ears to their plea and to their pain. Yet again the choice of a fatal strike won. If you have a backing of a group and are ready for a crippling strike you can get anything. In days to come we might get chance to hear and see strike by some prisoners union to excuse all their guilt and set them free. Government assured the doctors and medical workers of security and right which it will obviously forget in the time to come and the union of medical workers whose income suffered in two days of strike called it off. Everyone is so resolute to prove their power, their importance by warning others by showing how can they cripple others life with their power.
Government always works in haste and without any proper investigation it keeps distributing assurances and compensation whoever demands it for whatever reasons. Tomorrow a union of dacoits will demonstrate to secure their rights to raid the houses of people for money because it’s the profession they have chosen for themselves. They will be unyielding in their demands and will call for ‘bandh’ warning the public that whoever chooses not to abide by their diktat will be shot dead. Government will call the agitating dacoits in a talking table and come out with a proud press release saying ‘they have been able to convince the group of dacoits to drop down their demand to loot hundred homes to ninety five homes. To their other demands one of their representatives will be sworn in into the constituent assembly and amendment will be brought in the interim constitution to secure their rights.’
This week one marquee refused to be pulled off from international news agencies. A Jamaican immigrant Esmin Green died after hospital employees at New York’s Kings County Hospital ignored her when she slumped out of the chair and began convulsing on the floor. Immediate action was taken against the employees by the hospital and against the hospital by the state. Had it been here the hospital will come out in defense of its employees ignoring the price of a lost life. The state would have completely ignored the incident to provide enough room to repeat same mistake again and again in the future.
The whole series of events transpired when a patient died while being operated. If I heard it right it was an operation of a stone in gall bladder which is presumably one of the minor cases and this is the first time I have heard where a patient has died during the removal of gall bladder stone. Obviously this irked the relatives who blamed the doctors for irresponsibility and carelessness. They resorted to vandalism of the nursing home’s properties. And as always it called for another bandh. The group of medical practitioners without promising to probe into the incident called for strike and brought all medical services to halt.
Without a probe one cannot confirm whose fault is this. Many times families create scene in expectation of compensation. Its not for the concern for the deceased but the greed for money people take things into their hand. There are many complications in a disease and who knows the patient had complicated issue which caused his death. Otherwise no medical personal will kill their patient, but there have been reports of their carelessness. Time and again we read cases of scissors, towels and other equipments being left inside the body of the patient during the process of operation but I have never heard a punishment being given to the perpetrators. Medical personals are from affluent group and in country where everything can be settled under table I can only smell fishy things.
An active monitoring committee should be formed protecting the rights of the concerned parties. The government which agreed to the medical union in haste should have also assured the public that there will be a probe and the culprit will be brought to justice. In the mean time there should be a legal barring against the calling off of services to which the interest of general public is closely linked. Of course the protection of medical practitioners should also be ensured.

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