Tag: supreme court

MEDICAL LAWSUITS FOR COMPENSATION: ARE DOCTORS SOFT TARGETS ?


Doctors save the patient, but save yourself also.

In an era, when family members, brothers and sisters fight for money among themselves, it will be naive to think that idea of extracting money from the doctor does not exist. With courts giving millions in compensation, lawyers are ready to fight cases on zero fee and divide the booty later. There may be many relatives, lawyers who are ready to try their luck, sometimes in vengeance and sometimes for the  money received in compensations. This encouragement and instigation of lawsuit against doctors is becoming a major disadvantage to doctors. Here is a news from a paper showing the problem.

Dentist accused of botching up an implant, produces video of complainant feasting at gurudwara langar: Senior citizen claims Rs 35 lakh from her dentist saying her implant was botched up and she was unable to eat; the doctor produces a video of her feasting at a gurudwara langar; cops close case.

In this case the doctors was really smart and lucky. The doctor was able to generate some evidence .  but  most of the time, things lie in grey zone and it becomes very difficult for the doctor to defend. Unfortunately  sympathy of the court and public sentiments runs against doctors . Thanks to media and celebrities for the  negative and  campaign against medical profession.

Many a times problems are just part of genuine poor prognosis or just bad course of disease or simply complications of the treatment.  Public has failed to realize that during treatment of  human body, complications  are inevitable and will always happen.  Retrospective analysis and wisdom of hindsight, always throws better light. But during treatment all this luxury is not available to doctor. Genuine complications can be easily labeled as mistakes of the  treating doctor. Unfortunately, if there is a lawsuit against a doctor, he will be wasting all his time with lawyers and courts, which will takes years to sort out.

Problem is that, there is no deterrent for patients to put cases on a doctor. Even when  case is  just with a intention to harm, revenge or extortion. Harassment of the doctor is full and permanent, even if he is not at fault. Lawyers and patient’s  relatives can always have a field day, at the cost of doctors. Society may be slow to anticipate their long term loss at present.  Till that time, doctors will have to  find ways to save themselves, as this doctor did!

 

 

2

Misdiagnosis of health care, wrong and misdirected treatment of real problem


       Yesterday, there was a painful news in paper about the death of a child due to rabies.  It is really painful  loss of life due to a preventable disease. Every one sympathizes with child and parents. But equally strange was the suggestion  that action will be taken  against the  doctor.  Newspaper also  fails to raise a point that,  why at all a preventable disease should happen?  Similar trend we always see in media, when some death occurs due to diseases like dengue and malaria, it is a doctor, who treated the patient or trying to fight with the advanced complications is punished or made a scapegoat and projected as a villain in the story by media.

  No one including administration,  government, courts or media raises a point, that why at all the diseases which  are  completely preventable,  should happen and  keep on happening.  In my previous article, I mentioned the misplaced priorities of media about the same.  At least public, who is suffering should understand that dog bite and mosquito bite is preventable. Therefore more emphasis should be on preventing these bites. That should be made a priority. If  that bite is not prevented and no action is taken to prevent that, these diseases will keep on happening in  a large proportions.  Beds  and doctors are limited in number and will be unable to treat it, specially in advanced stage. So we need really good people to make a proper diagnosis  of our health care. Every time such cases happen and these are preventable disasters, doctors are sacrificed as scapegoats.  Some one sensible need to do a root cause analysis of preventable deaths.  Media people will  have to  find the correct remedy  and demand for it. Otherwise it is not going to help and treat sufferings of common people.

0

Medical lawsuit:bad lottery for doctor, Will ever there be justice for doctors?


Court’ s decisions, delivered with retrospective analysis and wisdom of hindsight puts the doctors  in  disadvantageous position, who have to decide  in the circumstances of  future uncertainties of diseases. Patients  will   always be unhappy due to disease and tend to blame the doctor. Doctors can bear  with the level of understanding of patients, ignorance of patients towards medical science, but it is  hard to digest the court’s  judgments of these types. Every drug, howsoever innocuous it may be, has different reaction in different humans. It is impossible to predict which patient will  have allergic or idiosyncratic reactions.

Here a neurologist has been punished because of rare side effect of the drug, which can happen to any one and with any drug.  If content of the newspaper are correct and this is the judgement, it is really unfortunate for the doctor and medical community as a whole.

So if doctors are being punished for uncertainity of medical science and there is  ignorance of courts towards the same, it will become impossible  for doctors to work.  It seems that in future it will be difficult to treat even a single patient because patients, courts and everyone either  do not accept genuine and routine complications of the disease or the outcome and  blame  the doctors  knowingly.

These kind of  judgments  are setting up   precedent for cases of negligence against medical professionals, for no fault of theirs. Thereby instilling a sense of fear in the minds of doctors, besides decreasing the faith in judiciary as well. Doctors are helping everyone, but getting zero justice themselves from all quarters including courts, have made medical professionals  sitting ducks  for harassment  by all possible means.

Now the neurologist will spend more money on lawyers in defending himself. He will waste his time in courts rather than treating patients. Above all, damage to his professional soul and morale of medical professionals as a community will get a jolt. Even if wisdom prevails and higher court does the justice later, the irreparable damage is already  done to medical profession.

The atmosphere of falsely created vigilantism is pervading everywhere against doctors, with the result that wisdom, judgment, intellectual debate, and basic common sense is being abandoned for the sake of populist judgments. The perception thus created against doctors by media and celebrities has done immense damage to profession, resulting in bringing the doctors  to their knees. Whether there is any substance to the allegations, unfortunately, does not seem to matter.

If doctors are going to be penalized despite  doing their job correctly, then God save the people and medics. If this is the  justice imparted to doctors, good doctors will choose for safer options. As society is unable or unwilling to do justice to doctors, should it expect good doctors to treat their patients? Or actually does the society deserves to have good doctors?

 

0

NMC bill, Medical crosspathy and antibiotic resistance : recipe for potential global catastrophe


   Genesis of a system, where every body will suffer and no one is beneficiary.  There has been lot of debates going on  about the Government willingness to allow crosspathy. There has been indications in newspapers about possibility of government  allowing Ayurvedic,  homeopathic and Unani medicine graduates and others  to practice modern allopathic medicines.  Most importantly which medications will be allowed to be practiced? Will  thousands of alternate medicine graduate will dispense all antibiotics,  anticancer , anti diabetic , cardiac medications. It is hard to think about hundreds of potentially dangerous medicines being given without structured training and  proper exams in this system of crosspathy. No one is bothered about the fact that every allopathic medicine is a potential hazardous chemical, if not used properly.

              It will be done through some bridge course. The structure and effectiveness of the said course is yet to be knowm. Whether it will be of 3 days or 3 months?  Who will be able to do it ? whether some level of efficiency  will be expected or every body will be allowed to just dispense allopathic medicine. What ever some one may argue, bridge courses can not be substitute to proper training for these complex diseases and drugs. Following may be side effects of dilution  of medical education and crosspathy:

  1. Alternative or ayurvedic medicine systems themselves: detrimental to these systems themselves because of many reasons. If  the  ayurvedic doctors   start allopathic practice, how we expect ayurvedic stream to florish and respected. It will be diluted to no end. After few years no one will be left will ayurvedic practice.  In my opinion it is a death sentence to ayurvedic system.

       Secondly,  the decision is not respectful to ayurvedic stream itself. Stream of                Ayurveda will suffer.

  1.  Public and patients: crosspathy clearly means a diluted and suboptimal medical services. Government may create few area of need and implement the scheme in selected areas, and selected simple drugs.
  2. Allopathy will be clearly a sufferer. If every body can practice allopathic medicine, why one should go for rigorous training. It will discourage the people who have opted and got admission to allopathic courses. They are paying and slogging hard for their training.
  3.  Dangerous to human race and potential global catastrophe:  All  allopathic medicines are hazardous chemicals in inexperienced hands. But  incorrect and massive use of antibiotics will  cause antibiotic resistance, which has global ramifications. From this angle, it is a retrograde step. When  all over the world,  need is being  felt that there has to be better control of antibiotic prescription.  We are entering an era, where antibiotics are getting useless and more so because of rampant misuse of antibiotics.  Rather than exercising a better control, it can be a catastrophic to human race world over by causing antibiotic resistance.
  4. have our public and people given consent for such diluted medical  excellence and services? It is  public  ultimately who  accepts  a decision for suboptimal medical service. Government may create few area of need and implement the scheme in selected areas, and selected simple drugs. But that also has not been planned.

 

2

‘A doctor who always operated on ear, irrespective of problem’: Role of media in Fortis and Max hospital Delhi incidents


        During my  days as medical student, we laughed at a story wherein a doctor always operated on patient’s  ear for all their ailments. Whatever may be the problem in the body, it was only the ear which received the cut always.  Similar treatment is being given to doctors by media.  Now-a days, for every progression of the disease and for genuine poor prognosis or death of the patient, media  is prompt to start the  blame game of doctor- doctor. Media even does not try to verify the facts. The real medical issues in treatment of these cases are still not emphasized by media, like whether these cases were salvageable or not.  For example why so many preventable disease like dengue, malaria happen every year   to thousands of people every year and are still progressing?  Take the case of foetus at 22 weeks…… how many have survived in India or in  the  world? In this case and that of  the complicated dengue case, the survival chances were quite dismal, even in developed world medicine.  Inability of media people to analyze the difficulty on scientific parameters, unwillingness of people to accept the real poor prognosis and political class to flow with populist opinion has done irreparable damage to medical profession. Just a blame game and the word ‘negligence’ are in the air.

    Outcome in these cases is not uncommon or unanticipated by any yardstick in the world. But no one is concerned about that. And in the end, what are the losses?

    Discouraged medical fraternity, low morale of doctors, and talk of leaving this profession have become smaller issues and do not affect anybody in media or Government. 

   But larger issues remain: how to prevent thousands of death due to poor control of communicable and preventable diseases. Proper delivery of health care will not improve by playing the blame game on doctor.  Media bashing of doctors may divert attention from the real issues and  media people   will earn money and fame. Doctors will be punished  as a result of  populist revenge.  But this approach of media is not going to save patients or provide better health care to masses in future.

0

Save the doctor to save yourself: An era when genesis of diseases is not punished, but treatment is.


            “Young girl killed by doctors at Fortis Gurugram” and “alive baby declared dead by doctors at Max Hospital Delhi”. These two news items  have recently jolted everyone in medical fraternity. Doctors have  yet  to come to terms with harsh reality  in order to   realize about the  harm   that can happen to themselves, when they just  say yes to treat the complex cases. A worst form of dengue already complicated, or a premature delivery at 22 weeks. I am sure doctors will know, how many patients and pregnancies have survived at this stage in the world, in both of these conditions.

     We have all kind of preventable diseases happening around us. Thousands of people suffering and many loose life, just because of worthless causes. Even healthy people are killed because of preventable calamities like open pot holes, floods, heat or preventable fires, accidents and so on. But strangely when disease happens and gets complicated in one patient, death due to these complications in the hospital is taken very severely. Although it may  have been  just untreatable at some point, but whole burden of death and punishments are  passed  over to doctors very conveniently.

   In both these complex cases, there are no clear cut guidelines by government. In whatever way doctor will act, he can be blamed easily on some pretext or another. By such yardsticks,  all complicated cases and subsequent  deaths happening in hospital settings can be termed as ‘ negligence’ by a fault finding retrospective approach. Now doctors have become scared  to treat complex cases.  

   It is sad to see that our leaders, media and all stakeholders have no knowledge of complex medical issues. I do not see any solution to these kind of exploitation and extortion of medics in near future.  But   are all complicated cases and deaths in hospital are Negligence?  This is going to be tough time for doctors but subsequently for patients.  These are worst days for doctors, where genesis of disease is overlooked and unnatural death of hundreds is not taken care of. But doctor who is working with intentions to treat the complex situation is being punished.  But society should be able to count its losses after few years, if such trend continues.  Good doctors will easily quit or shift to safe positions. Society has to save doctors, if it wants to save it’s people.

     

1

Silence of lords is a death sentence to the medical profession:#Doctor’s assaults


 

      Every one when sick, always seeks help of a doctor and invariably help is provided. But strangely, when a doctor needs help, there is no one. Even those people, whose life had been saved, have not returned the favor.  A   strange phenomenon has happened in few years of accusing the doctors for all the ills in society and holding them responsible, without even looking at the root cause.  Everyone has found an easy scapegoat to blame.   Human rights of medical community has been grossly violated by physical assaults. More painful is to see the authorities  who are  supposed to take action have maintained a silence in all these years about this issue.  There has been countless incidences, recent being in Kalyan and Jaipur.

 

If this trend is not checked in an effective manner, it will be difficult to even treat a single patient in coming times. The way media and prominent people have put all doctors in bad light, it seems that a normal and good advice is also not taken in a correct perspective. Even patients do not understand, that this advice is for the  their betterment only.  It is because of prejudiced minds against doctors. Our films and film stars have shown in films that it is okay to assault and bully the doctor to get treatment  in an effort  to impress the gullible masses and make some money. They may be successful in making some money, but by creating mistrust they have put the lives of gullible people on risk. The media should have a more sensible approach and do some basic research before highlighting sensational news against doctors, hospitals and healthcare professionals.

Just imagine, what that gynecologist did to the patient to  earn a slap, for no reason. In this  manner, forget about serious patients and surgeries, doctors will be afraid to do even routine surgeries as well. Here the situation is that even before surgery, doctor was slapped. Imagine, if a complication happens during or after surgery, doctor would have been killed. But strangely our government, human right commissions, police and courts have behaved as if they do not exist to help the doctor, but they expect the doctor to help everyone. This kind of inaction and  silence of  authorities is appalling.

       Obviously good doctors will try to shun the system. Government, human right commissions, police and courts, media have done their contribution to kill a profession, which was of great help to them.  I am sure we are civilized and wisened up enough to recognize these flaws in the society and have some corrective measures before it is too late………….too late to change the perceptions which will settle in the young impressionable minds of the children who till now think of it as their dream career. Otherwise no brilliant child would ever like to enter this profession out of their fear. Nor the parents would like their children to be working for uncivilized society.  The government needs to enact reasonable laws to use  healthcare systems,  to the best interest of people  instead of  unfairly victimize the doctors, just to impress the gullible masses.

It is not a doctor, which was assaulted. Silence of lords is a death sentence to the medical  profession as a whole. One person may realize the folly, but if we wait for realization to come to  whole civilization, it may be too late.

Again I will request the people to introspect, who rue the scarcity of good doctors “ do they deserve to have good doctors?”

 

 

3

Swachh Bharat obstacle: declare “open defecation free zone” only if free of infectious, toxic dog & animal poop


I truly admire and applaud Mr Narender Modi, Hon’able Prime Minister for drawing attention of 100 billion people to the issue of cleanliness outside their homes. No one had ever thought that a Prime minister would refer to this so called trivial issue and make a heartfelt appeal to people. Lot of public interest has now been generated and there is a race among public officials to get their area declared as free from open defaecation. Even celebrities and movie actors like Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar have backed this cause. All these efforts are really appreciable, but the prime credit still goes to Modiji who spearheaded this movement.

But there is still a serious issue, which is a stumbling block to the realisation of a ‘Swatch Bharat’ dream and remains unattended. I want to draw attention of everyone  towards the problem of animal poo in our country. It is all around us. It is an obstacle to fulfilment of Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan and  a pan-Indian problem. It is actually even a bigger health problem than open defecation by humans. Humans defecate in country side and in open fields. But stray animals and dogs are everywhere. Owner of pet dogs make them defecate outside their own houses and on the roads and wherever their dogs chooses. This poop dried and mixed with dust, acts a source of infection to the community.

       Life threatening infections : As a doctor, I would like to bring to your notice that dog’s and animal faeces is a big health hazard. It is even worse than a dog bite since it spreads infection in entire community. A dog’s digestive system can handle just about anything that it eats and this makes its poop very toxic. Animal faeces contain pathogens, which are known to cause severe diseases, infections and organ failure. These heavy loads of bacteria increase the risk of infections in the community. But pregnant women, children and people with suppressed immune systems may are more prone to these infectionsMany diseases may be spread by millions of these dogs and other animals like pigs, cattle as their faeces contain parasites, bacteria and viruses. These include life threatening bacterial infections by E. coli, MRSA, Leptospira, Salmonellosis, Campylobacteriosis, brucellosis, Rickettsia and parasitic infections like  Giardiasis, Whipworm, Hookworm, Roundworms, Tapeworms,    Cryptosporidiosis, Echinococcosis, Leishmaniasis etc. Viral infections like rabies, influenza and other viruses may also spread through these animals.

Environmental health Hazard: Storm water runoff due to extensive rainfall can wash off all these droppings into drains, many of which are connected to river systems and water sources in our country. This can lead to a widespread source of waterborne illnesses. Dry  poop on the roads is mixed with dust particles and in the air. So everyone is living in a highly infectious environment.  This may be an important cause of high rates of community acquired infections among our population.

             Transform health of the country: Hence it should be mandatory that all the  dog and animal (stray or pet) droppings are properly collected and disposed off. This single step can do wonders as it will reduce infections, people’s suffering and eventually reduce use of antibiotics. It can help reduce mortality, morbidity, drug resistance and medical costs by preventing many infections. It is my request to highest authorities to create awareness, form policies about disposal and control of animal waste and implement them strictly  to  bring a turnaround in infection rates in our country.

      It is missing key component  TOWARDS A SWACHH BHARAT. My request is to create awareness and form proper policies by higher authorities to cure millions and reduce infections in whole country.

 

If you agree please sign the petition

 

https://www.change.org/p/prime-minister-of-india-swatch-bharat-declare-open-defecation-free-zone-only-if-free-of-infectious-dog-animal-poop?recruiter=821371489&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=share_petition

 
2

Cracker ban by Supreme Court is correct: Bliss for some, cannot be by infliction of other’s health. Need for Eco-friendly, non-polluting crackers.


An eight year old child, scared  and sitting terrified in mother’s lap, feeling breathless and feeling a bit dizzy. Deafening sound of crackers send shivers down her spine. Her mother closing all the doors of house avoiding the fumes entering  the room like ghosts from every small crevices, peepholes and slits. The mother prays for the smooth sail through these days and the child knows very well that the time and season has come when people will revel  more and more, with deafening sounds of crackers and she will writhe with suffocation and  air pollution in the same proportion.

Irony is that, someone else’s  entertainment and  ball  of a time with polluting toys adds to her suffering. Here the sufferer is not the real user. Unlike if someone smokes or drinks alcohol, it is the doer who is sufferer. But here the root cause of her trouble emanates from enjoyment of others.

Every year, Diwali celebrations add to enormous pollution and air becomes thick with smog and suspended particulate matter.  It is a cause of breathlessness in children and adults and vulnerable to asthmatic attacks.

Like this one child, there are thousands of them and people from all ages suffer during this season from the thrill of others. These sufferers, who are frustrated due to their plight, with no fault of theirs, have to undergo treatment and see the doctor or visit emergencies of the hospitals. This irresponsible behavior of people puts burden on the medical services and the doctors, who are already overstretched due to workload. But it is only the doctors and nurses, who are available and visible round the clock, whereas people who have polluted the air and the controllers and rulers of the weak medical system are invisible. Patients are discontented, but they catch the glimpse of only doctors and nurses, who are striving hard to comfort them. For many, it is very hard to understand the complexity of the situation. The fact is that these medics are the saviors, who are not with their families on festival, but are there for the patients. But patients many a times, will rather tend to blame the doctors for their sufferings, poor treatment and difficulty in treatment, without realizing that constant pollution is the reason for poor response to treatment.

This kind of understanding and support of patients to doctors is vital and can go long way in improving the doctor patient relationship. But that may be a distant dream.

Why polluting crackers are needed at all. Crackers can be banned altogether, all the days and whole of the year. Can there be non polluting crackers? With advancement in science it should not be a difficult discovery. Why all of us cannot  keep in mind the plight of such patients? We  should all pledge for eco-friendly and environmentally safe Deepawali.

At this point what court has done is a tough, but correct step that is to ban the crackers. Inconsequential pleasure of some cannot be at the cost of health and  life of others.

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑