Monday, March 06, 2006

Is it ethical for doctors to go on strike?

Excerpts from The Maharashtra Herald’s Monday Debate on resident doctors’ ongoing strike.

“IT is perfectly ethical for doctors to go on strike. Like other professions if they are manhandled why should they take it lying down? The medical fraternity is doing their best for society and if society takes law into their hands, what are they supposed to do? The striking doctors are also catering to any emergency cases and so I do not see anything unethical about this strike,” says Jayant Navrange, Secretary of IMA Pune chapter’s Medico-legal cell.

“WE should realise that the medical profession is one of the noblest professions. We should realise that with the greatness and nobleness of our profession comes great responsibility, which is the key to our profession. For some shortcomings why should we put the poor and the needy in jeopardy? Why can't we have means of better way of protesting against certain decisions? In Japan, doctors never go on strike.
They wear black badges to express their discontent. This is an essential service and when we know that in our country that when there is a definite gap between the have and have-nots, we should display responsible behaviour by understanding the situation and adopting a different approach to tackle the situation,” says Dr V L Yemul, Dean of Pune’s B J Medical College.

3 comments:

Medha P said...

My personal opinion- The frustration of post graduating Doctors burst out after patients' relatives took steps against doctors. For years, these doctors are living in dirty environment with no security that too with meager stipent.

Secondly, while engineers start earning around 25k/30k immediately after completing BE,why M.B.B.S. doctors work "with no specific hrs.of duty" just to get post graduation on 8k stipend? I know,comparing other graduates with doctors isn't perfect match as they pay more fees while graduating. However, noble services rendered by doctors at the cost of their family life and health should be recognised by Govt.and society too.
My best wishes to these Post Graduate doctors with the hope that everything will be fine with them.

Anonymous said...

Doctors going on strike is similar to Mother refusing to feed her crying infant baby! All this because some hot head relatives had lost their temper for ill treating their patient? How could they ethically justify taking thousands of innocent patients for ransome for misdeeds of some by refusing to give them the treatment? It is imperative that the State resolves their genuine grievances without any further delay.However, Doctors must realize that their grievances could never be of greater importance than the immediate medical attention required by the patients for saving their lives! It is high time we make a legal provision to Ban the Strike not only of Doctors but of those public and private services essential for day to day living of citizens on the lines of the Judgement passed by the Supreme Court on the Bandh Calls given by the Political Parties.

Anonymous said...

Doctors going on strike is as un- ethical as mother refusing to feed her crying infant baby! All this hue and cry was raised because some hot heads had lost their temper and man handled doctors? What crime the other thousands of patients had committed to deprive them of immediate medical assistance to save their lives? It is, of course,imperative that the State resolves Doctors Grievances without any further delay.However, Doctors shoul realise that their grievances could never be of greater importanct than the lives of the thousands of ailing citizens!! The citizens should ask their representatives in the Parliament to make a law banning Strikes of Doctors and those providing essential services on the lines of the Supreme Court Judgement Banning Bandhs and recovering damages incurred by the State/Civic Administration by such Strikes and Bandhs. Nobody should hold innocent citizens to ransome in future.