A doctor has been arrested in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhindwara after a toxic batch of Coldrif cough syrup allegedly caused the deaths of 18 children across two states, exposing alarming lapses in drug quality control.
Strangely enough, when the drug manufacturer and the drug controller are responsible for the quality of drug, the doctors are the one who is arrested. Does that imply that doctors should now stop expecting justice from courts and Government?
The whole process appeared flawed from the root. Blame for the poor quality of drugs manufactured is passed on the prescribing doctor.
Even for complexities of medical science and uncertainties of the outcome, blame can conveniently be passed on doctors due to application of average wisdom.
This strange kind of justice delivery has unmasked the everyday struggle of the doctors in the present era. The unjustified arrest just for prescribing a medicine has depicted the plight of doctors- being undervalued and demonized, forced to work as a sub-servant, irresponsible policing, blackmail by goons and vulture journalism-all have become an accepted form of harassment. This incident has unveiled the despondency, moral burden, and injustice that doctors work with.
An effort to govern or regulate the medical profession is not new. Hammurabi had initiated to write the rules of the game. This single professional species was managed with cruel regulation around 5000 years ago, that initiated a change in the global perception and regulatory system in radical and unprecedented ways.
Hammurabi 5000 years ago, was not even at the doorstep of medical science, but he promulgated some rules. It is difficult to say whether he was naive or brilliant enough to make it more mathematical. He fixed heavy prize for saving lives and used to cut the hands of physicians for death or untoward incident. But he was still wise enough to pay heavily if life was saved. After thousands of years, with some scientific advancements, our regulation has remained more or less similar in basics. It is still based on principles of revenge and punishments. Now clearly knowing well the limitation of medical science and the uncertainties and complexities of human body in better way, it still remains somewhat unfair to doctors. In other words, it has not attained enough evolution and maturity.
Hammurabi at the start of civilization believed that doctors needed to be punished in case there was poor prognosis. He failed to understand the complexity of human body and the limitations of medical science, most of which was unknown at that time. By an application of average wisdom, doctor can be easily blamed for poor outcome, because he is always a common link between treatment and poor prognosis. Stricter punishments were imposed to regulate medical profession, even when the medical science was not even developed enough to deal with most of diseases. Children are always taught in school that medical profession is a noble one. But they are never told, about the cruelty this profession has faced since ancient times. Almost universally, the earlier work or contribution of a doctor to society is not taken into account. Even for complexities of medical science and uncertainties of the outcome, blame can conveniently be passed on doctors due to application of average wisdom.
Hammurabi’s Codex specified the harshest form of deselection of health providers possible. If the physician erred through omission or commission, his fingers or hands were cut off, immediately stopping his practice. Therefore, a single mistake can undo all the good work of past or the future good work that could have been accomplished.
Problem here is that who can differentiate with certainty the real cause of sufferings of patient, a poor prognosis or a mistake. Such harsh regulatory systems will dissuade other good people joining the profession, again resulting in further inhibition and flourishing of profession for the good. Obviously, harsher penalties will discourage a physician surplus.
Today the global system of medical regulation, is becoming somewhat similar, to those ancient regulations in terms of punishment and revenge. Differential payment system for health care also resembles the Code of Hammurabi in some respects. And this is even though now we are very well conversant with the known uncertainty and complexity of the human body and despite cognizance of the poor prognosis in many disease states.
Fear factors of injustice to doctors and impact of present legal complexities is already at par with that of Hammurabi’s era.
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