A STUDY conducted by ‘Ain O Shalish Kendra’ and reported recently by an English daily made a stunning disclosure that in our existing legal system physicians are enjoying almost total immunity from punishment while patients have no protection due to the actions of the doctors which result in mistakes occurring in their treatment or due to negligence in their treatment. It blamed a criminal nexus between the powerful medical lobbies and political establishments which keep the medical practitioners above any measures which would ensure any meaningful attempts at accountability. The real picture as depicted in the study is rather more shocking. It analyzed at least 333 cases of alleged negligence between 2009 and June 2013 in which 304 patients had died and others were permanently disabled. The report raised concerns to the fact as to why a medical practitioner couldn’t be held accountable and punished for their negligence to duty or due to their meting out wrong treatment. But it is very difficult under the existing laws. The report referred to some conventional laws covering the medical profession and health care facilities, but these are quite outdated and provide hardly any protection to patients. Physicians and dentists have their professional ethics and code of conduct administered by the Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council. If they are found guilty of gross neglect to patients under existing laws it may be treated as misconduct to justify the suspension or removal of the physician’s name as an eligible practitioner. But it had never happened so far. Bangladesh Medical Association (BMA) and the two other major party based doctors’ forums work more on political considerations than on professional motives. Politics guide them in all matters including promotions and posting. There is hardly any room for ethical build up to achieve professional excellence. Even the consumers’ rights protection act gives protection to patients, but the health service is not showing interest to develop any rules of business in this regard. The redrafting of the new health policy also remained stalled; which aims among other things at making the health service more responsive to patients and to their place of duty. Physicians at most places have become part of a sideline business now with private clinics to bring them more patients for tests and treatment and with pharmaceutical companies to promote their experimental drugs on poor patients, although all of these are illegal and immoral. In the Western countries medical services enjoys insurance cover and as a stakeholder they monitor the quality of health service and the death cases which they have to pay for. In case of death from neglect, insurance companies sue the physician to recover the insurance money with fines. We don’t have it here.As we see, there is a growing concern over the commercialization of treatment in the country but there is hardly any effective move to bring the physicians under certain legal bindings. We share common people’s concerns and demand appropriate legal and administrative steps to restore discipline in medical services to make them more attentive to patients instead of exploiting them. We also suggest departmental monitoring on doctors’ attendance to workplace, quality of their treatment and attention to patients. There must be punishment and reward to make the service more people oriented.
