Weighing the pros and cons of going on strike

The indefinite doctors’ strike that had paralyzed health services throughout Rajasthan has been called off after three days, almost 60 deaths and the government giving in to the doctors’ demands.

Meanwhile, the doctors’ strike in Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital is in its second day, as dengue, malaria and swine flu wreak havoc in the city.

Now the government has threatened to invoke the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA).

Ah, the terrible ESMA pops up again, ready to throttle our democratic right to strike work.

Perhaps this strike will be called off by the time you read this. But there will be others, in the near future. And should ESMA then snatch from us our right to protest in a democracy? I believe it should, when our means of protest compromise the democratic rights and freedoms of others.

For example, you may have been wrongly sacked, but if you hijack a bus and kill off the passengers one by one till your demand to be reinstated is met, you would be relinquishing your democratic freedom and right to protest. And your legitimate grievance would be drowned in the flood of disapproval at your criminal, deranged act.

The only difference between such a lunatic and doctors who go on indefinite strike is that the lunatic is alone and desperate. Whereas the doctors run in packs, and choose to discard
reason and humanity to perfect the art of the terrorist hostage taker: unless you meet our demands, innocent people will die.

Don’t get me wrong. I love doctors. Some of my best friends are doctors. And they tell me that the long-term benefits of meeting their demands outweigh the short-term harm of letting patients die.

Unless medics have proper salaries and working conditions (including being protected from angry relatives of patients they fail to keep alive) our health care system would never improve. So don’t worry about the hundreds who die or suffer every time there is a strike — that’s mere collateral damage.

The fact is, the doctor’s responsibility is to his current patient — flesh and blood people he is treating right now, vulnerable people who need help right now — and not to an unknown, intangible future population of possible patients at a time when the doctor may or may not be in service. There is an unwritten contract between the doctor and patient. The doctors’ blanket refusal to treat patients unilaterally nullifies that contract, where the patient has no say and is merely a hostage soon to become collateral damage.

Besides, in most civilised countries, on the rare occasions when doctors go on strike, emergency medical services are not affected. And they go on a one-day strike, enough to mark a strong protest and highlight their demands. An indefinite strike is a lowly tool for ransom. It forces you to agree to anything at all just to stop more suffering, no matter what the doctors’ demand. It is no different from acts of hijackers who get terrorists released or kidnappers who extract crores from parents by threatening to kill their child. The validity of the demand is destroyed.

Of course everybody has the right to protest in a democracy, including doctors. But frequent, indefinite strikes is not the way. Your right to protest cannot curtail my right to live. The right to life is supreme. Affecting that by withdrawing life-giving services is indefensible. And we need democratic methods in a democratic
country — not muscle power.