DHAKA Medical College Hospital was brought to a standstill for at least two hours on Thursday because of clashes between doctors and fourth class employees originating in what appeared to be a trivial matter. This centred around attempted entry of a doctor with some visitors to the Medical College where the gatekeeper stopped them saying that the director of DMCH being on a routine visit such admittance to the hospital was restricted. Altercation and manhandling followed leading to clashes in which three doctors and an employ were injured.

What is more to the point is that in the backlash as the on-duty doctors went on a wildcat strike, indoor patients, some of them critically ill, were denied medical attention. More disappointingly, most of those who had been waiting at the emergency ward for immediate attention had to be moved to other hospitals by their relatives.

Thanks to the director's intervention, formation of an inquiry committee to go into the incident and assurances for remedial action, the strike came to a halt but the doctors might resume the programme 'if the culprits are not punished'.

We would say let the inquiry committee find out the offenders; but in the meanwhile, we have several questions to find appropriate answers to. Our first question is to the doctors themselves: Why take it out on the patients? Dhaka Medical College Hospital, as the premier hospital in the government sector, is looked up to for setting right standards of medical service. Most of the common people who cannot afford high cost medical treatment knock at the doors of DMCH for medical attention they direly need. Doctors and other employees of the hospital must be conscious of their responsibility to the poor patients rather than hold them ransom to their changing temperaments.

We wonder why the matter was not brought up to the administration at the right time to nip it in the bud and prevent the initial tension from snowballing. There must be an autoreactive mechanism for trouble-shooting in such a big institution.