Gangtok, June 23: As India battles with Covid-19 pandemic, a Gangtok based doctor’s campaign for seeking protection for medical practitioners across the country has garnered huge support as cases of assault on doctors have increased manifold off late.
Dr. Sumit Periwal, who earlier served as a Senior Resident at Dr. B. C. Roy PGI of Paediatric Sciences, Kolkata, prior to the start of his private practice in the hill city, started the petition in the online platform Change.org in 2015, the year he luckily escaped assault by a mob of relatives of a patient.
“Although I started the petition after there were assaults on doctors in Maharashtra, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, I was driven by my own experience. I was surrounded by a mob of over 50 people outside the gate of B M Birla Hospital in Kolkata from where we were shifting a critical patient. We were lucky not to be assaulted because we remained locked inside the Ambulance,” he recalled.
The petition has so far received over 12.6 lakh signatures which makes the campaign one of the highly supported one started by a doctor in India.
The petition cites instances of at least 27 cases of assault on doctors across the country since 2020 till recently. The petition attracted nearly six lakh signatures in the first week of June this year after a video of a young doctor working at a Covid Care centre in Udali in Assam brutally assaulted by relatives of a patient went viral.
Similar incidents were also reported from Manipur, Sikkim, Maharashtra and West Bengal which led the Indian Medical Association (IMA) calling for a nationwide strike on June 18, 2021.
Dr. Periwal feels the prime reason for assault on doctors is because of the anger of the public towards the healthcare system in India.
“Healthcare system in India has totally collapsed. Covid has just shown us a trailer. The worst is still to come. It is our luck that we have dedicated doctors in the country who are still holding the health care system despite all challenges,” he said.
He suggests that a massive overhaul in the system is the need of the hour and merely placing a doctor in a health centre cannot help. He reminded that a doctor needs ancillary staff, infrastructure and medicines to work, and most importantly, the safety and security of doctors.
“If you ever visit a rural health centre, you will realise the pathetic health infrastructure,” he bemoans.
Demands in the petition
The petition demands for a Central Law to protect doctors (even in non-epidemic time). There were assaults on doctors before the Corona pandemic; there were assaults during the Corona pandemic; and, if nothing is done, there will be assaults on doctors after the Corona pandemic, it says.
The Medical Protection Act, passed in the year 2019, outlaws the assault on doctors and damage to their properties. It has defined a jail term of up to three years and a fine of Rs 50,000 for the offender.
However, the act is featured neither in the Indian Penal Code nor in the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). According to Dr. Periwal, the law “lacks clarity” and “exists in papers only”.
“Getting a FIR registered is a challenge under such laws. When it comes to assault, no one wants a discussion on the real reasons behind it. The real cause of assault is the rotten healthcare system for which the political leaders are responsible, the administration and the bureaucrats are responsible,” he said.
The petition also demands for a safer environment for doctors, ease of filing First Information Report in case of an assault, a fast-track process of dealing with such cases, making assault on doctors a non-bailable offense, availability of necessary medicines in the health centres, increase of number of doctors in hospitals, restricting number of relatives of patients visiting the hospitals, defining administrative negligence, increasing health care spending among others.
