The death of a 23-year-old man at Hospicio on Wednesday morning led to some noisy scenes in the hospital, charges of negligence against the doctors and halting of traffic on the road outside the hospital. There were two versions given of the sequence of events. The deceased’s relatives and friends said the man complained of chest pain which was taken to be a gastric problem and alleged negligence on the part of the doctors leading to his death. They then smashed some glass in the hospital and created a nuisance. A minister rushed to the hospital and assured the people that he would talk with the health minister to address the issue. On the other hand, the doctors and hospital staff absolved themselves of any negligence and said that the man did not submit himself to an ECG and sought to be discharged against medical advice and collapsed in the hospital minutes after he was discharged against medical advice.
If the latter version is true, can the doctors on duty at that point of time be blamed for his death? The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has stood by the doctors who, it claims, followed all the norms. Another pertinent question is whether the disturbances caused following the death of the youth are justified? There is no doubt that the sudden death of the young man would have shocked the relatives and friends, but that does not give them, or anybody else, the reason or licence to damage government property. There is need to curb this reaction, or rather over reaction to events, and retaliate with violence. Attacks on doctors, especially, on government doctors, are on the rise across India. Most of the attacks have followed the sudden death of a patient or the alleged denial of medical attention. But doctors are human too, as pointed out by the IMA, who also said, “We try to do our best but people should not indulge in violence.”
It is this violence that is abhorrent. This is not the first time that Hospicio hospital has seen such an incident. In the past too there have been instances when relatives of patients have reacted to the death of their loved ones and damaged property at the South Goa hospital. What needs to be taken into account, especially at this hospital, is the conditions prevalent there. On Wednesday, if the patient sought to be discharged from Hospicio, he perhaps had reason to ask for it, given that there was no bed for him at the hospital and, as has been claimed, he had been asked to sleep on the floor.
Yet, if the people feel that there has been some negligence or that they have been in any way wronged, there is a better way to redress the issue and get justice. One can always take the complaint, if any, further through legal means.
Today, there is much more awareness among the people of disease and medicine and treatment. Patients do question doctors and medical staff, unlike when what the doctor ordered remained unquestioned. Hospitals too are not let off easily and do face complaints from patients and their relatives, and at times even civil and criminal cases. Just last month in a case of medical negligence, the Supreme Court ordered compensation of Rs 1.8 crore to be paid to an 18-year-old girl who had lost her sight at birth due to negligence at the Tamil Nadu government hospital where she was born. This is not the first big award given by a court in a case of medical negligence. There have been bigger awards of up to Rs 6 crore given by the courts in cases of medical negligence.
While medical negligence needs to be addressed, it cannot be done by violence from the patients and their relatives. To the credit of the Hospicio doctors on Wednesday, they remained calm and did nothing to further flame the fires. IMA has advised private hospitals to increase security. It is also important that government hospital have adequate security so that such incidents in future are not repeated.
