Obviously, the doctors� professional life has to be guided by medical ethics and, above all,
sympathy for the patients
Intern doctors� strike
A report in this paper on Monday said that patients all over the country are suffering immensely as the intern doctors have gone on strike for an increase in their allowance from Taka 9,000 to Taka 25,000 at one go. The intern doctors are starters or clearly juniors in the profession. Nonetheless, they are indispensable for hospital duties side by side with the senior doctors. The senior doctors come to visit patients once or twice and the remaining period of the day and night in attending patients are taken care of by internee doctors. Now, their sudden absence is understandably causing great distresses for patients because there is no doctor to respond to a patients sudden need for help when a senior doctor is not available.
The doctors may have their perceptions of being wronged which they want to right. But pressing for more professional facilities or monetary benefits is a separate issue from the singularly important principle that under no circumstances doctors or medical professionals must not go on cat call strikes because they deal with human lives
The intern doctors have their grievances. But they have overlooked the fact that the patients, mostly poor, are by no means responsible for denying them expected financial benefits. The young doctors are trying to draw public attention to their grievances. But many of the ones who have been admitted to hospitals are suffering from serious diseases. Where will they go or how they will get any help? The doctors have every right to agitate but can they remain so insensitive to the true calling of their otherwise noble profession which morally oblige them to always attend to the needs of sick people whatever may be the state of their personal dissatisfaction.
The question of ethics and propriety does arise when patients have to bear the brunt of a neglect of duty committed in a doctors jurisdictional area. The doctors, at least a section of them, are not known to be particularly sincere or honest in discharging their duties, especially when they are posted in hospitals in remote areas. The Prime Minister herself has expressed her indignation with the doctors performance in those hospitals. Obviously, the doctors professional life has to be guided by medical ethics and, above all, sympathy for the patients.
