Hyderabad: Doctors say that their protests with regard to providing them adequate security are not being taken to their logical conclusion. The attacks on them will continue until the people realise that attacking doctors is not the solution to healthcare issues.
To highlight this, doctors have decided to wear black badges to work on a regular basis to make government and also people understand that this kind of violence against them will not work.
One section of the medical fraternity holds a different opinion on calling off the strike. They allege that local issues of West Bengal could have been solved but in a larger context, the violence is still continuing. In another incident, a doctor was attacked by family members of a deceased in Ranchi.
Dr B. Pratap Reddy, president, IMA Telangana chapter, told this newspaper, “A poor person will never attack a doctor. Those who are attacking doctors fail to understand that doctors are helpless in a situation where there is minimal support provided by the governments.”
“The people do not demonstrate any kind of medical discipline. Out of ignorance, they assume that doctors can cure everything, without knowing the latter’s limitations. They will never question politicians about what they are doing for the health sector but will immediately start blaming doctors,” added Dr Reddy.
Talking about the need for counselling, Dr Princee Chauhan, a medical professional, said, “There should be counselling for relatives of the deceased so that they do not do things out of emotion. Our profession teaches us to be calm and compassionate but no one will tolerate physical attacks.”
On the one hand, government is coming with flashy schemes like Ayushmann Bharat where they call it the world's largest national health insurance program, but the National Health Mission’s budget allocation was reduced by 2.1%. In the state, there are 16,000 doctors for a population of 3.5 crores whereas WHO norms prescribe 1 doctor amongst a population of 1,000.
