Mr. Uday Nirgudkar from Zee 24 Taas just conducted a so called ‘debate’.
Mr Girish Mahajan, the Health Education Minister was on the panel

Following were the statements –
1. ‘देव पेशंटला बरा करतो आणि डॉक्टर त्याची फी घेतो’ (God cures the patient and doctor asks for the fees)
2. ‘Hatts off’, ‘Wow’, etc to anything and everything that the minister said.

The minister was allowed by him to talk at length without any hindrance, but both the doctors were repeatedly interrupted by his extremely biased and insulting rhetoric.

Journalists should try and not behave like activists.
Sensationalism sells, but such blatant biased ‘debates’ and views are the prime reasons to antagonize the general public against everything that honest doctors stand for.
It is time for us to really somehow try and put forth ‘our view’ on the public platform and in the news.

Why and how YOU should speak out and support the agitating resident doctors. If you have EVER regained your health with a doctor’s help, please take two minutes to read this.

Like me, you’ve probably never been a patient in a government hospital. All your doctor’s appointments and hospitalisations were in well-appointed private clinics, nursing homes or multi-specialty hospitals. Unless you know one, you’ve probably never met a resident doctor.

But where do you go when a dog bites you and you’re afraid of getting rabies? When your vehicle skids on a slippery road in the middle of the night and you and your companions are injured? When you find a dying, drunk, unconscious or visibly ill person laying by the side of the road and want to help? When someone at home clutches his chest and gasps for breath and the nearest private hospital is too far away? When you need a disability certificate?

You go to a government hospital. The young man or woman who first attends to you is a resident doctor. They are called ‘residents’ because that is what they are; they reside, as well as work in the hospital campus. They are typically in their late 20s or early 30s, have no fixed working hours, often working for up to 48 hours or more with little food and no sleep. They are the hands, legs, heart and soul of every hospital, and they work tirelessly, and thanklessly, for two, three, six or more years, with only fifteen days off every year.

For the last few days, these resident doctors have stopped working in protest. Not against their inhumane work timings, their sweatshop-like housing conditions, occupational hazards like contracting tuberculosis or their salaries. No.

In the past 12 days, there have been 7 separate incidents in which the relatives of patients threatened, attacked and assaulted government doctors in Maharashtra alone. Ironically, two of these occurred after the protests started. One doctor is in danger of losing his vision, another’s confidence is shattered, and every resident has grounds to fear for his or her life.

While you may know that medicine is a physically taxing profession, what you must also understand is that it is primarily a THINKING job. Looking for symptoms, asking the right questions, choosing the right tests, arriving at a diagnosis and searching one’s mind for the right treatment are thinking tasks. So are single-handedly managing a ward with 50 patients, prioritising cases according to seriousness, keeping track of every patient’s response and a hundred other tasks that comprise a resident’s day.

Can YOU come up with ideas to when your client is slapping you? Will YOU be able to write an email while your client is busy destroying your room? When your client’s family surrounds you and threatens to beat you, can you even THINK?

Doctors are neither Gods nor superhumans; when intimidated or attacked, they can’t think either. And they shouldn’t have to. Every man has his limit, and the limits of resident doctors are far more than yours or mine. These limits have been breached, and that is why they have stopped working.

The response of the authorities to this has been to tell them that they are unfit to be doctors and should quit, suspending them, cutting off water supply to their hostels, evicting them from their hostels, threatening to revoke their degrees and hold back six months’ salary. No apologies, no admitting that the government has failed doctors for years, no political discussion in the Assembly or in Parliament.

Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. Would YOU continue working? Would you want to?

Almost every doctor you have consulted was a resident once. These residents will become the doctors you will consult some day. At a time when the doctor-patient relationship is deteriorating, please reach out to these young men and women.

Whoever is your young ‘doctor in the family’, is, or will be a resident. Speak up against the dangers they face, or will face someday.

In the US, writing to, calling the phone lines of and meeting elected representatives actually influences them. In our country, tweets and demonstrations work best. The residents have basic demands: BETTER SECURITY and making an attack on a doctor a non-bailable offence. Please join us in conveying this, and your support, to:
Dr Deepak Sawant, Maharashtra Health Minister: Tweet @drdeepaksawant,

Here is the strike for the security of doctors who are not here to fight with the relatives of patient. This can’t be compared with army or military since we are not carrying guns. Those people at borders are very brave and physically strong and undergone training for their work. We are trained to treat people and that’s what our job is. Military stands higher than us but at the same time we have one similarity that is *SERVING THE NATION.* They do by guarding our borders and we do by serving the poor people. If Govt. Hospital Doctors like us demand security at emergency departments and near Intensive Care Units (ICU) and round the hospital so that doctors can work under fearful conditions which will not hamper there decision making capacity to treat the patient. Relatives of patient under the influence of alcohol or in the flow of emotions at our govt. hospital threaten doctors and beat them black and blue.
First of all doctors at emergency and icu are there to treat patients and not to indulge in fights with relatives with no fault on our part. Govt should provide us secuirty so that we can provide proper treatment under better conditions and with quality equipments (only if it is available in that govt. hospital).
If govt can’t fulfill such basic and fundamental demand of doctors then it’s a shame on the system.
We aren’t protesting for extra salary or for reduce the working hours (which are 36 hrs without sleep and 24×7) and we also don’t complaint against the hostels we are provided…. we are just protesting for the basic demand which each citizen of India has right to…..and that is “Right to Security”.
Nobody loves to work under threat and fearful condition…..!

I came to this profession thinking that I will save many lives…but now I’m concerned only about my life due to these recent attacks on doctors increasing day by day. And this mentality of us (who are not doctors yet) to serve the people is changing due to some sick people spreading and defaming our image.
#PaidMedia
#ShameOnGovt
#SaveTheDoctor

*”DOCTORS VS JUDGES”:*

Judiciary should also come under CPA (Consumer Protection Act).

–In the Salman Khan hit and run case the LOWER court judge and the HIGH court judge had the SAME pieces of EVIDENCE to deal with.

–They also had the SAME Indian LAW to abide by and most probably they had similar education qualifications too.

–Yet they INTERPRETED the situation in absolutely CONTRASTING manner and gave verdicts which are poles apart.

–Just imagine what would have happened if a YOUNG doctor sitting in a GOVERNMENT hospital doctor catering to hundreds of patients in a day had diagnosed a celebrity patient presenting with gastric discomfort as GASTRITIS and another hospital had LATER on diagnosed that patient to be having a MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION. I am sure that doctor would have been screwed and jailed.

–A JUDGE gets YEARS to decide on a case
unlike a DOCTOR who is expected to diagnose and treat everything in the BLINK of an eye.

–If a doctor making a wrong diagnosis can be prosecuted shouldn’t a judge giving wrong verdicts meet the same fate?

–If hospitals can be sued for not admitting poor patients shouldn’t the courts be prosecuted for having lacs of impending cases?

–Is it not appalling that a judge taking 12 years to give a wrong verdict gets away unhurt and a doctor making one mistake is screwed by our legal system?

–Doctors practice medicine which is more of an art than an exact science whereas law is absolutely 100% manmade, yet doctors are expected to be right on all occasions.

–If doctors and hospitals have a duty towards the society then does the judiciary not have a responsibility towards the socitey.

–If there is so much of hue and cry in media about doctors and hospitals charging huge sums from patients then why do we not ever hear a word on the fee that lawyers like Manu singhvi and Jethmalani charge for their court appearances.

–Government often talks about putting a capping on the fees doctors charge for various procedures but their is no talk of putting a capping on the fee that these lawyers charge to get justice for their clients.

–If health is a citizen’s right then so is justice. Shall we take our minds off worshipping false heroes & think?

*JUDICIARY SHOULD ALSO COME UNDER CPA (CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT)*