Re: Guwahati, Assam: Another Neglegency by Medical Proffessionals

[Guest guest]

Hi Jahnabi:

First, my heartfelt condolences to the family who lost their loved one through

your kind self. I know its different to go through it, because i have gone

through myself in such situations and therefore, offer no excuses for the

professional who took decisions irresponsibly.

I stand in solidarity in your strife to be a source of support and strength to

others.

Few questions come to my mind as I read your email.

1. What can be done at the Guwahati Medical College (GMC being an Access point

for medical care in Assam) in terms of sensitising the Doctors and raising their

capacity to treat people who are positive?

Can ANPP do that?

2. How can ANPP link up with doctors in Assam to provide better service?

3. Could ANPP facilitate participatory discussion between GMC doctors and

patients for better understanding? Would such meetings help in building

relationship between the Medical professionals and patients?

I don't know if you have ready answers to them. But it made me think.

I would be interested to know your response on that.

We could learn from other Network of Positive People in the country also, on

what their response would be in such situation. I do not know what their stand

would be in such situations. But, i am of the opinion that we should enable

change.

Highlighting such irresponsibility on the part of medical practitioners some(in

the medical field) may argue saying its unwarranted because there are so many

who save lives. But i repeat myself again that I have no excuse for those who

acted irresponsibly on this case, and would support any sort of review or

appraisals carried out to book the persons responsible.

Thank you for reading my response. I look forward to more responses

from friends in the FORUM.

In Solidarity,

Lall

e-MAIL: <john.lall@...>

[Guest guest]

Dear Forum,

Lets not BLAME someone. Lets take responsibility and make efforts to bring

change!!

I am equally shocked by the tragic news of the loss of one more friend. We will

have to see many more such losses before we will actually succeed from the

present crisis have better modes of therapy, better treatment and affordable

regimes and better understanding on the disease.

We are progressing forward to find some solution and we are equally learning

from our mistakes. But on occasions as such, where we loose a friend, we should

restrain our feelings and reaction and just not start going around the globe and

vent out our frustration and anger on the medical community.

Doctors are even human beings and especially in a place like Guwahati, where the

social life is so much infiltrated with fear and scare, and the freedom of

speech and better training is limited, we need to give the benefit of doubt to

all the people involved in health care, even the doctors.

It will be more rational to sit back and think as how the doctors can be better

trained and made aware of similar situations to handle in the future, what needs

to be done to keep them updated with the dynamic treatments of HIV/AIDS.

As we know that Indian Medical Council doesn't have any kind of reevaluation

system to see if a doctor who has passed medical college in 1980 still is

keeping with the present and correct treatment modes which are true to 2005 or

still is treating his/her patients with those thought to him/her in 1980.

Thus we wont be surprised to see that the doctors views of treating the same

disease and with the same progression will be variable across the country,

someone in Guwahati may not be updated with whats new in the medical fraternity

as someone who is practising in Bombay!!

So issues such as these are better to be handled and addressed, rather than

bashing a single doctor for negligence and then portraying a very wrong picture

to the society, who needs just

another excuse to make doctors as a target. So just be a bit sensitive in making

such similar calls in future.

Next is the child had to be sent to Chennai, which means a lot of time in

transport from Guwahati to Chennai. What about Calcutta, was that not a

solution??

In times of such emergency, educated people need to be making decisions based on

rational thoughts rather than passionate views.

Someone should have taken the time required to make such a transfer and

especially when the condition was not that stable. This would have saved some

time which was spent in transportation and in cases as such every minute is

crucial..dont think about the days spent in past!!

Hence I am suggesting that, in those areas where the medical hospital or centers

are not well developed, we need to have a good referral system in place for

times such as these, where a critical patient needs urgent treatment and better

care. at times the hands of doctors are also tied, not by the reason that they

dont want to treat, but just due to lack of infrastructure and also due to the

stage of the disease progression which a non/medical person would see as that'

the doctor was not doing anything ..or no one cared for the patient " .

So its my humble request, that everyone on this forum should be a bit rational

and analyse the situation as how it could be better handled and not go around

blaming someone..as thast very easy to do and does leave scars which are not

easy to remove!!!

In Solidarity,

Biswanath Gouda MD,MPH

E-mail: <bisu_g@...>