Not only Happy Doctors Day! We need to be more ethical, Doctors be more responsive and system more dynamic

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, the father of analytical psychology, once said that Medicines cure diseases, but only doctors can cure patients.

July 1 every year is observed as National Docors Day as a token of thanks giving for Doctors across the globe. This is the day to say ‘Thank You Doctors’.  Indian Medical Association observes the day in India. Really, doctors are god on earth. India is facing the secod wave of COVID19 and doctors are the front warriors in the fight against pandemic. Over thousands doctor5s have lost lives saving us from the pandemic. 

Saying just ‘Thank  You Doctors’ can not suffice the relevance of the day. This is the day to peep into the crumbling  health system of Inida and the over-burden of doctors herein.  Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, the father of analytical psychology, once said that Medicines cure diseases, but only doctors can cure patients. Exaclty the right approach but on the contrary rising voilance against doctors have become new trends across the country.

Behind the violence against healthcare workers and doctors in India lies the failed health system. What can be observed behind impulsive outbursts of violence by patients or their attendants against doctors is the chronic neglect of public health by the Indian state. The rising differences among doctors and their patients have many faceds along with crumbling health system. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has reportedly appealed to the Prime Minister and written to the Union home ministry demanding a central law containing sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) “against healthcare violence”.

IMA survey says 80% of doctors in India are stressed in their profession, while 75% of doctors have dealt with some form of violence during their practice. This includes verbal, emotional, sexual, psychological, physical and cyber intimidation, threats, abuse, and occasionally even extreme bodily harm and injury caused by patients, patient-attendants, or even mobs of ‘miscreants’. As many as 62.8% of doctors are unable to see their patients without any fear of violence; 13.7% fear criminal prosecution most days of the week; and 57.7% of doctors have thought of hiring security in their premises.

Growing  tensions among doctors and patients is a three-dimensional problem which includs Doctors, patients and failing health system. Several times we come across the report of malpractices by doctors, of course only few doctors who have defamed the profession. A 2016 report says that a pregnant woman walks into a hospital complaining of stomach pain, and the doctors immediately conduct sonography. The doctors “manage” her sonography reports and call it an emergency, only to operate her, do unnecessary stitches and extract money.  Be it in urban or rural areas, the malpractices in medical profession has rapidly grown up. If patient considers Doctors a God, Doctor must do god-like behaviour. The doctors needs to be more responsive towards patients.

At the patients front,  we also need to be more ethical and understand the over-burden of doctors are facing through the cruel hands of the Indian Health system. In India, violence against doctors is part of a larger malaise in which the burden of caregiving is shifted out of the hands of the state. The cruel nature of India’s health crisis and the unpreparedness of the state have contributed delaying in medical treatment, lack of attention by doctors, lack of health insurance, catastrophic out-of-pocket expenditures, economic debts, and financial insecurities.

Let it be any reason – crumbling health system, mushrooming private hospitals or others – this is the day to thank our doctors for their never-ending struggle to save the lives of common.