A question of morals

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Mahmudur Rahman
One of the most vaunted management parlances suggests that profit is a consequence rather than a goal. While people hem and haw over the cat being thrown amongst the pigeons it has to be said that this is somewhat of a bizarre statement, given that business is devised towards making profit. It is the clash between the two versions that raise all the headaches.
Alex Hailey's 1986 block-buster book Strong Medicine laid bare the machinations of the pharmaceutical industries as it explored the devious lengths that companies went to, in ensuring high-profit making drugs without any compulsions on side-effects and such. The plot takes us through subtle blackmail and use of cherry-picked data in getting approvals from the regulatory authorities.
Change the perspective and the society and Bangladesh has probably an even darker tale to tell. Constrained from advertising even the common aspirin, the pharmaceutical companies are dependent on the whims (or otherwise) of practitioners in getting new range of drugs prescribed. It's no secret that physicians are wined (read soda-ed) and dined and taken on foreign tours as part of the brand promotion activity. Maybe, in modern day society it is acceptable. But when the ever familiar "envelope' concept starts doing the rounds the question that begs asking is where and why did morals fall by the way. Nine out of ten doctors will 'suggest' laboratory tests are done at so and so labs and the suffering patients, often considering the physicians as demi-gods tamely comply. In many cases, other physician colleagues simply laugh off the necessity of many of the tests. And it is not by chance that whenever side-effects develop medication is swiftly changed.
The hordes of briefcase wielding salesmen who wait patiently outside physicians' chambers for the precious five minutes of communication time are fighting a losing battle because the days of common persuasion are over. It's more like a 'what's in it for me" scenario that prevails.
Add to that the incidents of gross negligence by doctors that led to street protests by aggrieved families in Dhaka in the recent past, and you have a situation that borders on the appalling. In a country where physicians neglect hardly ever sees a resolution in courts, because the expert witnesses never seem to go against their colleagues in white, the hapless patients have no where to fall back on. Given the emergence of the Consumer Protection Act maybe now we need to look at a Patient's Rights act. That may well cover the cities. God knows how the rural patients will find redress. After all quinine will cure the fever but who will cure the quinine. (The writer is a former head of corporate and regulatory affairs of British-American Tobacco Bangladesh and former CEO of Bangladesh Cricket Board. He can be reached at mahmudrahman@gmail.com)