Troubles at major public hospitals

Some major government hospitals have earned infamy in recent days because of strikes by doctors following violent incidents involving them and patients or their relatives. The Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH), the largest of these health facilities, which is familiar with troubles of different nature, has been going through a fresh bout of troubles for the last few days. The interns at the hospital went on a wild-cat strike from Saturday midnight protesting the attack on an honorary doctor at the DMCH surgery department by miscreants. This has created serious disruption in the hospital services to both indoor and outdoor patients.  One incident that took place at the Rajshahi Medical College Hospital (RMCH) some days back has even prompted the High Court to issue suo-moto rule on the RMCH authorities asking them to explain as to why they should not be directed not to issue practising licences to the intern doctors who had refused to treat a sick photo-journalist. The court also wanted to know from the authorities about the actions taken against the interns.
The suo-moto action of the higher court on the basis of media report is a justified one since ethically and professionally no doctor can refuse to treat a patient even if the latter is the deadliest of enemies of any individual doctor or the entire medical professionals. The interns' action, it is understood, was in response to an earlier face-off between them and the local journalists centring the death of a patient, allegedly, due to negligence on the part of doctors. When journalists went to cover the violent protest by the relatives of the ill-fated patient, it is alleged that the RMCH interns and some staff members physically assaulted the journalists and smashed their cameras. The assault of the DMCH doctor, it is assumed, is linked to an earlier violent incident involving some interns and Dhaka University students.
The High Court has taken into cognizance the RMCH interns' refusal to treat a patient. But scores of patients are deprived of treatment when doctors resort to strikes on varying grounds. This also amounts to refusal to treat patients most of whom are poor or belong to low-income families. Since interns are not full-timers they may not need to comply with laws and rules while resorting to strike, wildcat or otherwise. But the government medical college hospitals are apparently depended on the services of the interns (or honorary doctors in the case of DMCH) to a great extent. In most cases, the interns, while on strike, forcibly close the main entrances of the hospitals. Even seriously ill or injured patients are, thus, barred from entering these public health facilities.
The dependence of the major hospitals on interns or so-called honorary doctors does appear very strange. Under such circumstances one might feel tempted to raise a few questions about the duties and responsibilities of the full-time doctors of these facilities who are paid by the state. Allegations are galore that the full-timers spend most part of their time on private consultancy and practice, depriving the patients at government hospitals of their services.
However, the doctors too have the right to air their grievances, if there is any. It will be unfair, even on the part of the media, to blame the medical professionals forthwith for any lapse without knowing the whole story and their point of view. Besides, assaulting anyone physically without the sanction of law is a criminal offence. Unfortunately, the propensity to indulge in such an offence even by the enlightened section of the people has been on the rise. It is expected that good sense will prevail and all concerned would exercise restraint while responding to a difficult situation. Since the doctors are engaged in a noble and humanitarian profession they should think twice before resorting to any programme that would only bring sufferings to the poor patients.