Medical fraternity across the State has taken umbrage against the contentious statement made by K.B. Ganeshkumar, MLA, in the Assembly on Tuesday that some doctors ‘deserve” to be flogged and that it was alright to flog them.
In a statement here, the Indian Medical Association, the Kerala Government Medical College Teachers’ Association and the Kerala Government Medical Officers’ Association, condemning Mr. Ganeshkumar, said that his pronouncement was akin to a call for violence against doctors and a challenge to the legal system in the State.
Coming just ahead of the Statewide strike called by the IMA on Friday to protest against the increasing incidents of violence against doctors, Mr. Ganeshkumar’s statement is a clear encouragement of violence against health workers, the associations said.
The MLA will have to share the blame for any violence unleashed against doctors henceforth, they said. As a member of the law-making body and one who should take a lead role in making hospitals safe workplaces for doctors, his statement denigrated and demoralised the entire medical fraternity, they added.
While Mr. Ganeshkumar has the right to raise his complaints of corruption in the health sector, the call to take to violence against doctors went against the pronouncements of the High Court which has asked the State administration to take stringent measures to prevent attacks on doctors and hospitals.
The IMA said that it has decided to bring the MLA’s contentious statement to the attention of the High Court. Such irresponsible statements, without fully understanding the medical complexities involved (in the particular case of medical negligence raised by Mr. Ganeshlkumar in the House), will generate much misunderstanding in society.
Mr. Ganeshkumar should have sought an explanation from the doctors/surgeons at the medical college hospital before making such allegations, the IMA said.
It has also decided to file a complaint with the Chief Minister and the Speaker against Mr. Ganeshkumar’s statement.
Strike tomorrow
Meanwhile, the medical fraternity will go ahead with their dawn-to-dusk strike on Friday as had been announced earlier, the IMA said on Wednesday.
It said that the strike call had received overwhelming response from all professional medical organisations in the State.
All health-care services, except the emergency wing, labour room, transplant surgeries, will be disrupted from 6 a.m. till 6 p.m. across the State in both the private and public health sector. The special clinics set up at Brahmapuram will not be disrupted.
