Doctors with little moral sense

The Young Doctors Association (YDA) over the invention of the Supreme Court has withdrawn the five-day old strike.

However, the closure of the OPDs on the second day running in all teaching hospitals of Lahore, the provincial metropolis, has left bitter memories and raised vital queries.

Without any doubt, the doctors who forcefully closed the OPD had must heard the Hippocratic Oath, which is taken in the past by physicians and other healthcare professionals to practice medicine fairly.

Among other things one is that a patient should not be harmed in any case. Treatment was refused on Tuesday to the patients at indoor department across Lahore. Moreover, a handful doctors equipped with clubs and iron rods and roughed up attendants asking them to treat the patients, particularly children.

The armed group of doctors forced their colleagues, who are willing to treat serious emergency cases or conduct crucial operations, to leave the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC). It reflects the teaching system that executes doctors by the thousands every year but with many having little sense of the moral obligations.

In a system, this was bound to happen where many topmost doctors running teaching hospitals work till late hours doing lucrative private practice or spend time romancing bureaucrats, and thus can pay little attention to the health of the system.

The above mentioned incident is also a reflection on the quality of the governance in the province. Ultimately, the Punjab government finally decided to withdraw the cases against senior PIC doctors, which caused the strike, possibly leads to two equally aching endings.

Firstly, the cases were weak and the concerned doctors were framed to relieve the political pressure on Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif who was accused of neglecting his duties as health minister.

Secondly, the cases were genuine but withdrawn under mounting pressure from the doctors.

In case the second is true, the CM has shown a highly dangerous direction to organized groups to get their illegitimate demands accepted.

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Posted by Faisal Farooq on Feb 18 2012. Filed under Health, National, Opinion, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.