The good doctors, please stand up!

Privatizing of health services and corporatising of hospitals and nursing homes in the country had posed very serious issue of medical ethics and social responsibility of the professional services. Should there be some societal overseeing of our private health services? Particularly since multinational pharmaceutical and international health insurance companies have entered the country’s Health sectors and the medical services had been corporatised.

The issue of societal control of medical profession calls for a national debate. Undoubtedly, most professionals are highly qualified and good intentioned doctors render great service to society. My father, being a vaidya used to give medicine free in our village but claimed that a vaidya could never starve in any country. Admittedly, the times had changed. Today, admission to a medical college cost anywhere 30-40 lakhs. And the most fresh medico graduates start out with a low salary. But the question is not of so much of good income but accountability and ethical obligation of the professionals. Should a well-established, and financially well-to-do senior doctor declare a not so ill a person seriously ill, suffering from liver cancer, and advise immediate hospitalization in an expensive high flying hospital?

There are many good doctors in the country who serve the public privately with professional dedication. They could have migrated to the U.K. or the U.S. for greener pastures. But commercial aspect of medical services notwithstanding, intentionally giving false diagnostics to profit at the cost of health of innocent citizens cannot be justified and must not be permitted. To charge for 10 bottles of glucose without giving it to the patient, e.g. is not so bad as a rich surgeon- declaring a healthy unsuspecting woman that “she is pre-cancerous required immediate operation.” The pathologist at the Lab “sees what the doctor want us to see under the microscope.”

What protection a citizen has against corrupt and unscrupulous professionals who have entered into the noble profession? Senior professionals, e.g., diagnose healthy men and woman suffering from “liver cancer”, and admit them into 5Star Hospitals for expensive tests, Ultrasound, CT Scan, MRCP and blood tests etc., etc. Body parts are removed from unsuspecting citizens, without due consent or their knowledge. The patient is seldom briefed about the purpose and the procedure of the treatment. Nor the patient is shown of any stuff that is removed from his/her body.

If any doubts are raised in the judgement of the doctors, the patient ‘s condition deteriorates, and further investigative tests are prescribed and enforce the blood transfusion. Now, with the blood injected into you, any serious illness can be traced to blood transfusion.

In any case, a citizen has no legal protection against greedy and dishonest doctors because no professional appears to witness against the medico fraternity. And just before the patient is wheeled to operation theatre, she/he is made to sign a four page “consent” and trust in the medical establishment.
There are many such reports of malpractices in our reputable health centers. Are these professionals inapt, corrupt or criminals? The question is how to tame unscrupulous medical professionals who are operating in the country’s private health sectors?

These are serious issues concerning social responsibility of ever spreading corporatisation of health services in the country. In the United States, Senator Hillary Clinton is fighting for protection of the citizens but in India, no political leader has raised this issue. The Indian Medical Associations had not discussed the problem. And no political party has considered it necessary to speak about it. There are many good doctors, with long years in the noble profession who could come forward and act as the whistleblowers.