The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has declared that its theme for Doctors' Day, being observed today, is 'zero tolerance to violence against doctors and clinical establishment' and has decided to mark July 1 to 8 as 'Safe Fraternity Week'.
IMA's national president Dr Ravi Wankhedkar claimed that the anguish among people due to exponential growth in the cost of healthcare delivery is being misguided towards doctors.
"Such violent practices have created extremely stressful working conditions for the doctors, and the quality of service and safety in healthcare sector is being affected," he said.
"Sailing against many odds, like uneven working hours and stressful environment, doctors still are delivering their best possible services," Dr Wankhedkar said.
Secretary General of IMA, Dr R N Tandon said, "We are committed to safe, ethical, quality healthcare. At the same time, protecting our doctors from violence at clinical establishments and providing them safe, fearless work environment tops our agenda."
Illiteracy, lack of knowledge about healthcare, diseases, natural history of illnesses, unreasonable expectations, political backing for vested interests and anger against government mismanagement of healthcare are responsible for the violence against doctors, he said.
Expressing dismay over the silence of the civil society over antisocial elements taking law into their hands to settle score with clinical establishments, the IMA said even though 19 states have adopted medicare acts, there has been no convictions in the numerous cases of violence against medical practitioners.
"This does not arouse any confidence, and we demand for a robust and a proactive approach (central medicare act) to protect healthcare professionals and clinical establishments, which should be declared as safe zones.
"Convictions should be done at utmost priority in special fast track courts, and the act should be strong enough. IMA demands a minimum imprisonment of seven years in healthcare violence," Dr Wankhedkar said.
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