"Every time a doctor is assaulted, another 100 doctors stop taking the risk
they would usually take to save someone. Unfortunately your loved one will bear
the price of it and you wouldn't even know"
Introduction
Last few years, reports of violence against doctors, generally resulting in
grievous murder or hurt, are creating headlines across the world. Many such
incidences are reported from India. But, this menace has not been highlighted
adequately. Whether or not the rise In coverage of violence actually represents
a true increase in the prevalence of the condition or simply represents
increased awareness within the era of electronic mass media and improved mass
media equipment desires additional assessment.
Violence against doctors or
different medical fraternity hardly created any news, or hardly there was
discussion about this in India in medical journals a couple of decade back as
they were most likely infrequent .Very often, those that abused a medical person
were patients themselves who were beneath the influence of alcohol and drug and
were delirious or were in the psychiatry wards. Increased risk of violence was
conjointly recorded once a general physician was on house calls, particularly at
night.
However violence in India, particularly against the doctors, gives a
totally different picture. More often than not in India, patients by themselves
aren't violence makers, but their relatives are. These unknown apparently
sympathetic people political leaders and political parties take the law in their
hand. The most vital dimensions of violence to the doctors in corporate and
government hospitals is the feeling of wrong doing by the doctors for money or
for avoiding his/her duties.
Anxiety, long waiting period before the patient may
speak to a doctor and therefore the feeling that doctor isn't giving enough
attention to his/her patients engender frustration giving rise to violence.
Majority of the hospitals in India don't have a good grievance addressal system
in place. Legal procedure in India however takes extraordinarily long time.
For
government hospitals and first health centers across the country, significantly
in West Bengal and Maharashtra, violence by patients' relatives, local goons,
political leaders and even by police has been reported. Here, money isn't the
solution , the anxiety, long waiting period, non-availability of crucial
investigations, unreasonable delay in referral, unhygienic and intensely crowded
condition within the emergency and different wards are a number of reasons
given. Electronic and mass media both don't have real understanding of the
challenges faced by the
Doctors. Factors related to violence against doctors in India. Now, what may be
done to scale back the violence against doctors? If we glance at the
classification of patient violence, in our country, most of the time, the
violence refers to verbal abuse, devastation and physical threat; most of the
types of violence
Are to return to our society. However, the most important difference in violence
as is seen in western
Countries is quickly the verbal abuse becomes physical assault and vandalism and
how rare it's
That the patients and their relatives or third party make no efforts to prevent
it. Several prescriptions for preventing violence to doctors have been provided
within the literature ranging from changing the program of study, developing
additional communication skills, understanding by taking note of patients who
can be violent, being cautious at violent venues, ready to run from the scene if
scenario demands, educating patients and their relatives, rising attention, etc.
While some of these prescriptions are implementable, some are clearly not.
What A Doctor Can Do Or Should Do To Avoid Violence?
A doctor ought to perceive a number of those patient related characteristics
which can be related to violence. Whereas most of the things are related to
background psychological disturbance or substance abuse within the patient in
the western examples of violence, it doesn't have abundant implication within
the current situation of violence against doctors that has engulfed this
country. Heightened anxiety concerning the disease additionally as finance
required for the sickness appear to be a vital component of initiation of
violence and also the doctor should train himself/herself for anxiety
alleviation techniques.
Studies have shown seniority of the doctor matters, i.e.
a senior doctor faces less violence than junior doctors, whether or not this can
be associated with less exposure of senior doctors to explosive scenario or
his/her better handling the situation, his/her political Influence or obtaining
respect from patient's relatives because of his/her long years of experience has
not been looked into.
Bereavement, young patient under serious condition, only earning member within
the family and solely kid with serious sickness evolve emotional outburst which
can quickly end in violence. Doctor ought to have good training to tackle these
things. Long waiting hours and doctor's behavior towards patients and relatives
are necessary contributors to aggression and want to be addressed by the doctor
the maximum period as possible.
Doctors most likely should attempt to optimize
and reduce long waiting periods for the patients in the waiting rooms and try to
improve patient contact as much as possible. Use of digital technology, mobile
phones, is also helpful to achieve this end. For example, it's repeatedly been
seen that long queues within the hospital, lack of Communication from the
doctors and opaque charge systems are necessary predictors of violence in India.
Both digital and mobile technology will well help during this area.
What The Hospital Should Do?
Hospitals will do abundant to reduce the violence. In government hospitals, this
can be done as a part of general reform for the hospital services in the form
of:
- Improvement of services in an exceedingly world fashion;
- employment of adequate number of doctors and different steps to ease the
rush of patients and long waiting hours;
- use of pc and web technology;
- hospital security ought to be strong and it must be properly interlocked
with near police station;
- no arms/ammunition by patient or their relatives should be allowed in
the hospital;
- there should be transparency on rates of various investigations, rents
and different expenses within the hospital; and
- there should be a correct complaint redressal system within the hospital.
What The Patient Family And Society At Large Should Do To Prevent The
Violence?
There is large responsibility of patients, their relatives and society at large
to stop this violence. Disputes between patients and hospitals or doctors don't
seem to be to be sorted through violence, however in an exceedingly civilized
society; there are avenues of dispute redressal that should be used. Modern
drugs are neither low cost nor 100% effective in curing the illness in all
cases. There shouldn't be under expectation on the result of the treatment in a
serious case.
Some patients will make it, some patients won't. This could be clearly
understood. There should be an understanding that destruction and violence in
the hospital or clinic could be a criminal offense and any civilized society
ought to have low tolerance for such atrocious acts. Hardly social leaders are
seen to condemn such violence these days, and surprisingly they fight to justify
the case.
Responsibility Of The Media
It is the responsibility of each print and electronic media to not
sensationalize the news. Medicine isn't a black and white subject and so its
management. Diagnosis of a patient is basically hypothetic deductive method, and
with new proof through investigations and data, the diagnosis of a number of the
cases continues to be refined. However, whatever the diagnosis be, the
management of patient usually includes such uncertainties into consideration and
treatment continues.
Responsibility Of The Government And Political Parties
In India, the reason for violence against doctors is multi-layered. Spending
around one per cent of the GDP by the govt. in a very population that
exaggerated five times since independence isn't enough. Modern medicine is
progressing by leaps and bounds, but most of the medical faculties and hospitals
within the country could not keep place with the progress. The government must
place the hassle to check the overcrowding in the hospitals are often prevented.
No nation will build hospitals for 1300 million patients, but it is possible to
build hospital for 1300 million voters who are mostly healthy. To keep 1300
million people healthy in a very country like India may be a Hercules task.
Nutrition, immunization, pollution control, health education, personal hygiene,
access to wash water, unadulterated milk, pure food, facilities for exercise,
playground, and etc. are the essential needs. The government should concentrate
its activities on preventive drugs. The govt. ought to penalize unlawful
behavior of anybody who tends to harms the doctor and vandalizes the hospital.
Conclusion
Although violence against doctors and alternative health workers isn't uncommon,
the incidence in India appears to be increasing. Several remedies have been
suggested to tackle this case, a number of those are discussed here. As there
are some responsibilities of doctors and other health employees, similarly,
responsibilities even have to be borne by patients and their relatives,
hospitals authorities, political parties, law maintaining machinery, media and
government to see that health care improves and violence against doctors is
handled.
There's a requirement for a detailed longitudinal study across the country to
understand the prevalence, nature and regional differences in violence
perpetrated against doctors in this country. The current study by Indian Medical
Association (IMA) reports that seventy five per cent of doctors in India have
faced violence at some point of time in their life, and most of the time, it's
verbal abuse. Emergency and ICU are the foremost violent venues and visiting
hours is the most violent time. There is no reason now to prevent this violence
against doctors and take preventive measures.
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