State should better our security: How doctors in UP reacted to the national strike

"We are shown as villains amidst increasingly ambitious healthcare schemes"

Doctors wear bandages on their heads as they participate in a rally to show solidarity to protest against an attack on intern junior doctor in West Bengal, at AIIMS in New Delhi | PTI Doctors wear bandages on their heads as they participate in a rally to show solidarity to protest against an attack on intern junior doctor in West Bengal, at AIIMS in New Delhi | PTI

Having a posse of agitated people tear off his clothes and charge at him with a pair of scissors was not Bimlesh Thakur’s idea of being a doctor. But, last year, when he lost a cancer patient to severe bleeding, that perception changed forever.

“There was no way of controlling the bleeding. The patient had been under treatment for three years and the prognosis was guarded. We had explained it clearly to the relatives, yet they turned violent”, Thakur told THE WEEK.

Thakur is a senior resident at Lucknow’s Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences (RMLIMS), pursuing his second year of M.Ch at the Department of Surgical Oncology. The 169 residents of the Institute were among the doctors who struck work on Monday in response to a call by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) to protest the June 10 violence against doctors at the Nil Ratan Sircar (NRS) Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata.

The Honorary Secretary of IMA’s Lucknow branch J.D. Rawat says the idea that violence against doctors is acceptable is spreading. As an example, he uses a May 2019 incident when dozens of relatives of a patient descended on the Trauma Centre at Lucknow’s King George’s Medical University (KGMU) to create ruckus over what they perceived was inadequate care to a patient.

Rawat, a professor of pediatric surgery at KGMU, says, “There is a rising tide of expectations from student doctors (residents) who are encountered as the first point of contact in a hospital. But, such doctors are equipped to carry out only a certain range of treatments and procedures. There may be stray cases of negligence, but we seniors are present to manage them. The government must step in to formulate an appropriate response to the manner in which doctors are targeted”, he said.

Last year, in May 2018, one such student doctor at KGMU had attempted suicide. His peers said that it was in reaction to the constantly rising work pressure which left many of them under severe mental duress. In 2014, it took the Lucknow Bench of High Court to intervene in a strike that started at Kanpur’s Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Medical College to protest the beating of doctors by the police and supporters of a Samajwadi Party MLA.

In addition to the resident doctors at KGMU and RMLIMS, those at Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) too will continue to strike work till 6am on Tuesday. Emergency, inpatient and follow up services remained operational.

Namrata Punit Awasthi, the vice president of the faculty association of RMILMS, said, “We stand in solidarity with the strike called by the IMA as it is for a common cause. However, we do not want any patient should be harmed. That is our first calling. We have tried our best to deliver the care that patients expect from us." Awasthi was among the 150 faculty members of the institute who hung up their coats in a show of protest while taking over the jobs that would have fallen on their juniors.

But, for many younger doctors, the show is not enough.

“The response would have been much harsher had it been a faculty member who was targeted in Kolkata. If doctors don’t step in for themselves, there will come a stage when no one will be willing to join the profession,” said a doctor. Another said that the fraternity’s genuine concerns are never portrayed. “We are shown as villains amidst increasingly ambitious healthcare schemes which pay little attention to infrastructure and manpower,” she said.

S.K. Agarwal, former VC of KGMU, says that doctors must bear a part of the responsibility for the aggression against them. “The mushrooming of private medical education has created a generation who are doctors only for recovering the investment on their education. Most such doctors display none of the noble qualities that are a must for our profession,” he said.

Thakur says that last year’s incident has left him a little wary of patients, but was sure there were better ways to handle patients and their concerns. “We should perhaps be oriented on the socio-economic and demographic profile of the region where we are posted,” he suggests.

Rawat puts Monday’s symbolic protest as the strongest ever by doctors. “Across the country, more than 70 per cent doctors from the private and the government sector have joined through black bands, protest marches and banners. Hopefully, governments everywhere will be forced to pay attention to our genuine demands”, he says.

According to the database of the Medical Council of India (MCI), the statutory body that regulates medical education in the country, upto the year 2015, there were 11,50,036 registered doctors with the various state medical councils. Of this number, 78,818 were registered with the UP State Medical Council. According to the National Family Health Survey (2015-16), every doctor in the state serves 3,812 patients—much above the 1,000 ideal set out by the World Health Organisation.