Ensuring the safety of doctors and training them to improve personal relations with patients and their relatives were among the recommendations made by the medical and legal community at a day-long national convention on Medicine and Law held here recently.
Attacks on doctors, particularly in government hospitals, are on the rise. Data from the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors show there have been 16 attacks on doctors so far this year. Most of them took place following the death of a patient.
Four-week ultimatumIt was suggested that hospitals introduce steps such as banning video and audio recordings on their premises and training the staff to deal with such exigencies. Last week, the Bombay High Court gave the State government four weeks to list steps taken to ensure the safety of doctors.
One important recommendation was to take government hospitals and medical colleges out of the ambit of the Consumer Protection Act owing to poor infrastructure and patient overload. It was suggested that the courts take cognisance of the fact that reasonable treatment of government hospitals could not be the same as in private hospitals.
Setting an exampleMember of Parliament and former Union Health Minister Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss said there has to be a deterrent to protect doctors from attacks. He cited the example of Tamil Nadu, which has enacted a law that makes attacks on doctors a punishable offence with three to 10 years of imprisonment. Private hospitals were also asked to implement safeguards against surreptitious photography and video recording.
Other matters that came up for discussion included the issue of dermatologists prescribing arbitrary drug combinations and the need for regulating refilling of drugs without a fresh prescription. The convention identified the need to familiarise doctors, particularly part of forensic and intensive care units, with the legal provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. It was also suggested that Act be introduced in the medical education syllabus.
‘Boost organ donations’Leading doctors at the convention also said there was a need to boost cadaver organ donations. It was suggested that people willing to donate the organs of their relatives be given incentives such as being accorded priority if they ever require an organ transplant.
It was also recommended that brain stem deaths be delinked from the Transplantation of Human Organs Act “as families are suspicious that death may be declared for the purpose of organ donation.” It was suggested that a specific law be formulated for brain stem death.
