& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

ANALYSIS

When doctors turn hooligans

Syed Badrul Ahsan
A section of the medical profession has lately been throwing professionalism to the winds and engaging in acts which we generally associate with lawless elements, indeed with criminality.
The audacity with which a reporter of the daily Prothom Alo was pounced upon by a doctor and an employee at ZA Sikder Women's Medical College in the city on Tuesday is but one more symptom of the malaise that appears to be undermining a profession whose avowed purpose is to save life, to prevent life from coming under threat of any kind. And yet when Shafiul Azam, head of the cardiology department at the medical college in question, decided that he could physically assault and confine the Prothom Alo newsman in his office in league with some goons, he was giving us the clear impression that he did not care. He must be made to care.
In recent times, reports of doctors and interns throwing civility aside and indulging in behaviour clearly at odds with the calling of their profession have appeared in the media. Such behaviour has shamed us all, and especially when the reputation of Bangladesh's doctors is none too FROM PAGE 1
good either in the country or abroad. One will certainly not condone the behaviour of citizens who round on doctors every time a family member dies in hospital.
Anyone who takes the law in his hands needs severe disciplining. But the fact is also true that very large numbers of doctors in Bangladesh adopt a laid-back attitude to dealing with patients in their care when urgent treatment or check-up is of the essence. There are incessant reports of doctors spending long hours treating patients in their private chambers before deigning to put in an appearance at the hospitals where they are employed and where other patients, with their families, have been waiting for them for hours together.
To this state of indifference has now been added the spectacle of doctors and interns resorting to unabashed hooliganism on any ground whatsoever. When interns pick a quarrel with individuals on the question of who can use what elevator in a hospital (and this happened at Dhaka Medical College Hospital), one has little doubt that somewhere the idea of the Hippocratic oath has gone haywire. When at Rajshahi Medical College, doctors refuse to attend to an ailing journalist because he is part of a profession which happens to be focusing on misdemeanours at hospitals, one can only be appalled. The RMCH incident drew a swift High Court response. Should those who committed the crime not be dealt with sternly therefore?
In any other modern, assertive and secure state, medical practitioners violating their code of conduct and indulging in mayhem would not only be shown the door but swiftly made to answer for their misconduct. In Bangladesh over these past few weeks especially, angry doctors have shut the gates of their institutions, including their emergency departments, caring not a bit about the ill and the wounded begging to be treated, to be let in. The elderly have waited for hours for doctors to show pity, in vain. A man has tried to have his brother, the latter with severe injuries on his body, treated urgently. His entreaties collapsed before the cruelty of striking doctors and interns.
This growing culture of violence perpetrated by doctors and interns, as
manifested in sudden shutdowns at hospitals to the detriment of the physically ailing, calls for stern action. And action is needed elsewhere as well. There are yet a number of doctors who refuse to be transferred out of Dhaka. That simply will not do. And there may well be others who, like Shafiul Azam, are serving at more than one institution. Such doctors need to be brought within the purview of the law. Shafiul and others like him must be investigated in the full glare of transparency.
The health of citizens will not be safe in their hands unless exemplary action is taken against all doctors and all interns, besides others, who in recent weeks through their strikes, shutdowns and hooliganism, have made a mockery of the medical profession.
Depriving citizens of medical care is a crime. Not taking action against those who commit such misdeeds is equally a crime.
There are limits to which citizens can go. Let those doctors and interns who have employed violence against other citizens feel the heat of the law.
That law must make it clear, in unambiguous terms, that doctors cannot resort to strikes, cannot shut the gates of hospitals and clinics to patients, cannot go moonlighting, cannot become a threat to human life and must not create social disorder.
If they do otherwise, they will necessarily be subjected to punishment, for no one is above the law. Besides, they risk damaging their reputations, their careers, their future -- irretrievably and deservingly.