There is no love sincerer than the love of food

Patients and their relatives have decried the strike embarked upon by the Association of Doctors, which has crippled the health care services. Total compliance with the strike by the doctors, will result in the discharge of all critically ill patients from the various hospitals. All the wards in the hospital will virtually be empty but for a few patients, whose conditions are not so critical and are being attended to by other medical staff such as nurses, among others.

Patients are being made to bear the brunt of the crisis between the government and doctors which is not fair. It's irresponsibility on the part of the government and the doctors to leave patients to die and suffer. Both should live up to their responsibility by working in the interest of the masses. Why must civil servants always use strike action to press home their demand? Just look at what this warning strike embarked upon by medical doctors has caused? Some patients have died due to lack of medical care. Doctors are not supposed to embark on strike no matter what happens. Their primary duty is to save lives, money or no money.

This doesn’t mean that the government should never address doctors’ grievances. They are complaining about salaries, allowances, the state of the hospitals and the threat they are facing from the relatives of the patients.

Let's face it, the truth remains that on no account should doctors go on strike. They are life savers and not killers. Anyway, it all boils down to the fact that many of them are not called into that noble profession; they are there for the money and will take any action to get money at the drop of a hat. If one is truly a doctor, his major motivation would be to save lives.

It is agreed that they have their legitimate grouse with the state but when two elephants fight, the grass suffers. People are dying and some are in great pains waiting for doctors to alleviate the pains. They must not forget the holiness of their profession. In other climes, medical doctors are given preferential treatment in the banks, shopping malls, eateries, highways, etc because duty can call at anytime, so government should, as a matter of urgency, look into their matter at a faster pace. The doctors say the strike action is not targeted against the patient but against the government for insensitivity to their plight. That is laughable because it is the patient who bears the brunt.

One of the fundamental tenets of a national socialized health care system is that health care is a shared responsibility. As a doctor, the share of the responsibility is arguably greater than that of the average citizen. This responsibility is an inherent aspect of the Hippocratic Oath. Therefore, it is unethical for doctors to strike for financial reasons. To draw an analogy between striking doctors and other striking sections is false, and only recognizes the superficial nature of the issue. Put simply, a teacher, a clerical staff or member of any other area of work, joining a picket line may bring a temporary halt to that individual’s work, which can be compensated at a later time by working more time to make good of the loss but a doctor joining a picket line may cause irreparable injury or even death to his patients.

This opinion may seem a little melodramatic, but the point is that the pursuit of a medical career has unique challenges, rewards and burdens. When one undertakes such a responsibility, one agrees to unconditionally, provide healing for the sick, and to do no harm to the life or lives he has trusted upon. Hence striking as a doctor presents philosophical and moral inconsistencies that cannot be justified by monetary motivations. Physicians, whether they are part of a nationally-funded health-care system or some other system, function as agents to provide health care and are interested in the well-being of their patients. In addition, they play a broader social, political, and economic role as a member of an institution that is a very vital part that makes up a system. Whereas other institutions like education, social assistance, environment, finance etc. etc play a different but comparative role in that all contribute to how our society runs.

It is high time the government takes notice and does things needed at proper times to alleviate the problems of the medical practitioners and making their jobs more appealing rather than making them feel that only crying babies get the bread, then only can we save the future of the public health sector. If not, then the value of human lives is set to dip as private sectors do not function for social welfare. Health will become another commodity too expensive to attain for the underprivileged. Obviously with emergency wards being left un attended and most day to day procedures being put off indefinitely the protesting doctors are looking like villains to a lot of people as the dilemma of the Hippocratic oath versus due compensation comes into the limelight.

However people need to understand that becoming a doctor even on subsidized education received by many of these individuals in government medical colleges is a very tough road to travel. Not only does it involve so many sleepless nights spent in a very stressful and competitive academic environment and working like donkeys on house jobs with no pay at all. It is no surprise therefore that many of our post graduate doctors decide to fly to fairer shores to seek better compensation for their services. Those that stay behind are summarily reduced to working in squalor like conditions with not just the stress exerted by our emotional society in emergency situations but without the just fruits which their hard labor deserves. Let’s admit it that the present pay for post- graduate doctors is just a pitiful sum, an insult for these individuals, as private chauffeurs in their very city make equal to or more than this amount. How do we expect these individuals to lead a life worthy of their hard work and education in this sum of money?

Strikes, all over the world, are seen as a weapon of last resort, even among labour unions that have no direct links with saving human lives. With the habitual grounding of the nation’s health system, no further proof is needed to conclude that the nation’s doctors have thrown their sacred oath, which places premium on saving life, to the dogs. For instance, no fewer than 50 patients’ deaths were linked to the strike embarked upon by doctors last year.

On the onset of a medical strike hapless patients with various types of infirmities have been abandoned and mortuaries are brimming with new corpses. Hospitals have thus become dangerous for in-patients and a no-go area for emergencies. For a state, of its large population and cosmopolitan status, the implication of the ongoing crisis in the state’s public hospitals is better be imagined. The discomfiture of patients with debilitating cases is captured in the tales of woes from those concerned. It is evident that those that are worse-hit are the deprived who have no means of patronising private hospitals.

The concerned government must design a vox populi vox dei step for negotiating and implementing the present demands of the doctors. States should start asserting their independent, though coordinate status in the system and reward doctors based on their resources. When government neglects them, doctors across the country should opt for a less-disruptive means of expressing their grievances. None will benefit from the total collapse of the system or from the needless deaths of the most vulnerable in the society.

The only way therefore is the compromises made from both the government and the doctors’ side to resolve these crises. We have suffered too much already, as it is we really cannot afford a country wide medical stoppage, the results of which would be catastrophic. Basic medical care is not an unattainable luxury folks its good all of us wake up before we make it one. Doing hours of long duty under stress saving human lives is not a simple talk deal. The minimum our system can do is to provide doctors with so badly missed basics where it is thoroughly failing time and again. Imagine the situation when the doctor in operation theater faces power cut and no support back up and gets beaten up by patients’ relatives for negligence who themselves in first place may have been responsible for casual attitude and delays.

A doctor also is a human being and obviously is entitled to a safe working environment. Many patients are brought to the hospital when all hopes are lost. What is the doctor supposed to do then? They try to explain the situation, but those who accompany these patients are not ready to listen and accept the reality. Instead they start man handling the doctors and then the press is called, political parties get involved etc. What is the way out?

Once a patient is brought to the hospital, and admitted, the doctors work on him hours on end. Despite all these efforts if the patient gives in to his illness. Who is to be blamed? Is it the doctor who has done all efforts in human reach to bring the patient back to life? Is it anything beyond a doctor’s efficacy?

A person who falls sick is treated initially at home or in the neighborhood by the local quack. When the condition of the patient is totally out of control he is brought to the hospital for treatment. This patient who is in a very critical condition when admitted in the hospital, after initial life care steps, needs investigation and procedures like ECG,EEG, scans, different laboratory tests, emergency surgeries and in many cases be put on ventilator. The aide of the patient neither provides the correct and full history, which will help at least in stabilizing the patient nor is ready to give consent to any of the above procedures. They are roaming under very false notion that these primary records of procedure are licenses and gateways for the doctors to escape as if they were waiting to kill and flee. If any causality happens, the whole blame is put on the doctor. The poor fellow will be subjected to suspension, enquiry and a lot many other unnecessary and unpleasant ordeals.

Doctors work for the betterment of the patients, first and foremost they are human beings and they try to cure each patient. Make no mistake about it that when they lose a patient they lose a part of their soul, because they work hard for the patient, to give him relief from his illness.