The doctors’ strike in Maharashtra over violence against them by relatives of patients has struck a chord among doctors in Delhi, too, who went on strike in solidarity with their peers in Maharashtra. The Maharashtra government responded with an iron fist against the striking doctors, threatening them with loss of pay for six months and eviction notices if they did not report to work. This is almost a replay of similar strikes that broke out in Maharashtra and Delhi in August 2015, where doctors withdrew only after getting a written assurance that their demands would be met. 

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In the present case, unlike the last time when it sought to understand the grievances on both sides, the Bombay High Court has taken a grim view of the strike. The court noted the inconvenience, distress and grave danger that the threat posed to patients, giving hospital authorities the liberty to take any action deemed fit to bring the doctors back to work. However, there is a risk of the strike spilling over to other parts of the country in view of the common sentiment among doctors that the government has failed to curb attacks on them by irate relatives of patients who die following hospitalisation, or during medical procedures. The other side of the argument is that doctors get away easily despite medical negligence. 

It is a double-edged sword, but the blame must lie with the government in both instances. The public health sector is in shambles, with overcrowding and abysmal and inadequate facilities becoming a common feature in every government hospital across the country. On the other hand, legal recourses to medical negligence cases are time-consuming and few patients or their relatives have the resources to pursue them. It would have been better if all hospitals set up an ombudsman-like independent medical board to proactively investigate and take action in medical negligence complaints. But as was seen at AIIMS in Delhi last month, after the death of a nurse following a botched-up delivery, it took sustained pressure from the victim’s nursing colleagues for the hospital to take action against the erring doctors.

The knee-jerk measures of the government to like invoking the Essential Services Maintenance Act to break down the defiance of the doctors will help it tide over the crisis but this only contributes to bottling the anger on both sides for a while, only to break out again after the next rash of unsavoury incidents. The government may appear to be on the side of the people in cracking down on the doctors but cannot escape its culpability for allowing the system to go to rot. The civil legal recourse under the Consumer Protection Act takes years to reach fruition. In criminal cases, the courts have proceeded with caution, to shield doctors from frivolous prosecution and require a complainant pursuing criminal liability to prove a higher degree of negligent conduct. Junior doctors routinely have to do 24-hour continuous shifts and are overworked and underpaid. The probability of error in such stressful working conditions is higher. The government must take the initiative in improving security arrangements in hospitals and opening more government hospitals. The government’s holier-than-thou attitude to the strike will be exposed sooner than later.