Not all is quiet and well on the health-service front in this country. Its hospitals are making news for all the wrong reasons. No civilised nation has ever experienced clashes, let alone such negative incidents repeatedly between physicians and relatives of patients, between the former and other hospital staff or outsiders over trifles like the use of lift reserved for doctors and alleged wrong diagnosis or treatment. Hospitals are sacrosanct in so much they have been developed as institutions. The institutional aura has long been shed not only from the health facilities where patients are supposed to be given a new lease of life but also from other institutions once regarded very highly. The truth is that a credibility gap has been created and the service providers and seekers look at each other with distrust. In case of clashes between physicians and hospital staff, their class consciousness or narrow interests have fuelled the hostile relationship.
It seems the decline in the sanctity of health facilities is gathering further pace in recent times. Over the past one month at least four reputed hospitals of the country have become witness to awfully ugly and cruel developments over matters from trivial to serious ones such as use of hospital lift, news coverage or wrong treatment. The simmering rage first exploded at the Rajshahi Medical College and Hospital (RMCH) when internee doctors attacked journalists covering hospital news. The second such incident took place at the Sir Salimullah Medical College and Hospital also involving attacks on journalists of electronic media. In the third such incident at a private hospital, the doctors were primarily at the receiving end simply because a police officer happened to be one of the near and dear ones of a patient undergoing treatment there. Enraged at the indifferent hospital service, the police officer and others accompanying him reacted violently.
The Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH), the largest health facility in the country witnessed the latest flare of temper. Internee doctors, reportedly, were the aggressors once again. A student leader belonging to Dhaka University's one of the hall units of the student front of the main ruling party, along with some of his associates, this time was the target of attack. When photographers of newspapers and news channels tried to cover the incident, they too were under attack. What is the psychology behind such aggression by internee doctors? On the threshold of their career as physicians, the internees have no reason to be so intemperate. After all, they are some of the top achievers of the country's education system. Not every student even with golden GPA-5 grade in SSC and HSC get chance for studying at the DMCH. Are the internees under severe pressure so that they react irrationally or violently at the slightest provocation? Brilliant students like them should have inculcated the values of service to the ailing humanity. Instead, they are turning out to be ruthless products of a mindless system with no responsibility to society. Meanwhile doctors at RMCH refused to attend an injured journalist.
This certainly is a cause for serious concern. Their relatively younger age will not explain the occasional outbursts of their temper. If their work load proves too much for them, they are sure to look for avenues in order to release their pent-up emotion. In this case, it may be their frustration for not finding a solution to their problem and the consequent anger. This observation leads to a more incisive question about the doctor-patient ratio and the time spent by the senior doctors at their duty stations. The problem here is that junior doctors or internees are their students and they have hardly any liberty to express their feeling before their teachers. They are quite aware of the road ahead of them in their career.
Systemic decline in sanctity of institutions poses a grave threat to society. Whether it is in the case of judiciary, bureaucracy, law enforcement agency, health or education sector, the practitioners in each area must share the blame for bringing their institutions to disrepute. After all, it is man whose action matters at the end of the day in influencing the ambience of any dispensation. There is no reason to believe that doctors teaching at medical colleges instigate their students to act like thugs. But then there are elements in the entire system that is of little help to teach young learners of the values that have sustained society. The country is getting divided in camps like that of Hutu and Tutsi racial clans. Already politics has shown how ugly, mindless and rapacious it can turn at times.
If educational institutions, including the highest seats of learning, also turn into factories of stick- or weapon-wielding elements, this nation is certainly going to invite more trouble than it can handle. There is need for a thorough review of the system of education at the highest levels. The emphasis ought to be on learning human values alongside studies far removed from the clannish and party considerations. The reason why medical and engineering students are not highly motivated politically lies perhaps in their greater concentration to studies. But this should not be a cause for them to be otherwise clannish because their study at the public medical colleges, where the best crops get admission, in particular are heavily subsidised.
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