Retired Supreme Court Judge B.Sudharshan Reddy has called upon the doctors to extend human touch while treating their patients.
Addressing the 21 annual conference of the local chapter of Cardiological Society of India on Saturday, Justice Reddy said medical services were increasingly being viewed as commercial perhaps due to promotion of corporate hospitals. Impersonal and business like treatment of patients where doctors barely talk to the patients will affect their credibility, he said. Referring to the increasing number of deaths due to heart diseases, he requested cardiologists to devise some mechanism to reach out to the poor and the needy in rural areas and help improve their condition as many die without even knowing the cause for their illness.
He said Central and State governments should revive the past glory of government hospitals in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam and doctors could bestow their attention on this aspect too. On the growing interface between law and medical professionals, Justice Sudharshan Reddy said people were becoming more aware of their rights, appreciating value and dignity of life and started questioning the doctors. The Supreme Court had noted that great respect was shown to medical profession and law did not question choice, options exercised by the doctors in treating patients. But negligence and indifference had to be questioned for course correction, he said.
