The IMA must stop making decisions to please the society and media, and seriously address the concerns / threats to the medical profession, if any nobility of this profession is to be maintained, and if the needy / poor are to really benefit. People forget that days have changed, courts of law and society have themselves labelled medical profession as Business where the patient is consumer. There are obvious market forces, pressures, and needs playing upon a doctor. People still think 1000 /500 Rs (New / Followup) are high consultation charges for specialists and 2500 / 1000 for superspecialists in India, while these charges exceed 20000/10000 in most developed world. There are no concessions for an Indian doctor in any taxes / expenses etc.. As much as the loathing by society, our real tragedy is the expectation by old generation of doctors who think no one must charge / earn over what they did in their prime. Crime is whatever I could not bring myself to do...All else is justified according to anyone who comments. There is no denial that there are malpractices, but Higher charges for better skill is not malpractice. If the society expects that an MBBS doctor should charge less than 500/250, and all the specialists / super specialists who have spent half their life acquiring world-class expertise to serve Indian patients should also charge the same, it is a pathetic situation. Like everything else, these charges should also increase yearly with inflation, and the govt (Media is also welcome to) should compensate the enormous number of free patients almost every doctor treats daily. There is no question that everyone must get good treatment irrespective of financial status, but a society or govt which exploits the highly skilled medical professionals for this is in fact damaging itself. IMA /MCI must take stand in cases of hundreds of FORCED free patients (who are govt servants / some ministers / officers laden with gold and living in bungalows, but pay 28 rupees for a superspecialist). Also these patients must be seen only at Govt hospitals... they come in anytime to any hospital, keep needy patients waiting, take hours of a doctors time, and demand to be treated by a team of multiple superspecialists free of cost..They go as far as demanding to move out ICU patients / other patients to accomodate their relatives. Unfortunately these are also our policy makers. The IMA must stop making decisions to please the society and media, and seriously address the concerns / threats to the profession, if any nobility of this profession is to be maintained. Rajas Deshpande
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 06:12:30 +0000