Young doctors’ strike in Punjab

Monday, July 02, 2012 - Let me first say that in my several articles in the past I have praised our doctors, like in the PIMS in Islamabad and paid tribute to them for handling the number of cases they do each day which is far more than an American or British doctor in his hospitals can treat I have great respect for our doctors here and abroad , In my family in the nearest relations there are many male and female doctors. My own daughter is a doctor. But despite all this I must say I am appalled by the insensitivity of our young doctors who are so stone hearted that they are using the patients, poor people, as hostages with the Government to bow to their demands, whatever they are.

There are two aspects of this matter, the doctors’ own demands as against doctors refusal to treat the patient, and using their suffering as a blackmail to brow beat the Government to submit to the doctors demands. I have not much to say about whether the doctors demands are justified or not. I will confine only to the use of immense sufferings of the sick people who the stone hearted doctors are using as a bargaining stick.

Medical practitioners and surgeons are looked upon as great benefactors of humanity and it is said that they earn their reward in both worlds, this one and the one hereafter. No other profession has this much reward. However, I cannot imagine that persons in such noble profession will be so apathetic to human misery that they will care too hoots for sufferings of the patients. The Doctors Oath obliges them to treat any sick needing their help irrespective of the colour, caste, creed or religion of the patient. . Refusing to treat a a sick person is breaking of that pledge.

This in fact entails a punishment of debarring that person from practicing medicine or surgery and morally is a crime. Their degree can be cancelled for breaking that Oath. For such a noble profession to deal with the misery of a patients as a means of black mail is beneath the dignity of such a noble profession. Has our younger generation become so insensitive to the pain and misery of their fellow human beings. To make suffering humanity a hostage for compelling the Government to accept their demands is very cruel act.

I have seen in foreign countries attachment to their profession just as a duty. In Yugoslavia they treated a Pakistani victim of road accident for months and then sent our embassy the bill for his surgery and hospitalization. They explained that under their law a victim of a serious road accident has to be treated whether he can pay for it or not or his government later pays for the treatment or not. In our own case a doctor of our Field Ambulance who had gone to Lebanon to treat Palestinians wounded in the civil war treated an Israeli fighter when he was brought from the field to his hospital. The Palestinians surrounded the operation theater demanding that the Israeli be handed over to them, Our doctors refused saying this would a violation of the doctor’s oath. Palestinian commanders complained to me but we told them that our doctor had to treat the seriously wounded victim of the Civil War because to refuse him the treatment would have been a dishonorable act. Here my dear youngsters you are inflicting pain on our own nationals!! National interest is above all interests. If all other services resort to such blackmailing tactics Pak Administration will collapse.