Nothing Going Right In Nepal

By Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

On the call of Nepal Medical Association (NMA), all doctors working at the government and private hospitals, and private and government-run teaching hospitals went on strike on July 09, 2008 closing all medical services except for emergency services to protest the life-threat to surgeon Dr. Subodha Kumar Adhikari and the breaking of the private hospital called Everest Nursing Home on July 05, 2008 on the pretext of the death of a patient due to the negligence of the doctor. NMA has been asking the government for the protection of medical professionals and hospitals from such vandalism perpetuated by some misguided relatives of a patient. The strike has continued on July 10, 2008. It was not the first such incident but such things have happened repeatedly in the past. The government has not seriously taken up such a public interest matter immediately and solved it, yet. According to the NMA, the Prime Minister makes a commitment but hardly keeps it; so, the NMA wants the government’s commitment in writing and enforce it.

Certainly, it was not the right thing to do for the relatives of the patient to go into rampage and break all sorts of things at the hospital, after the patient died. They could have use the private media particularly the private TVs that are so eager to limelight any events of the public interest and make the erring doctor or hospital pay for the compensation for the loss of the life of a loved one.

A precedent has been set for such a thing in the past that the relatives of the deceased person used the private TV to force the hospital to pay for the compensation for the loss of the life of a patient due to the negligence of doctors attending the patient. The relatives of the deceased patient in question could have done the same thing and receive compensation for the loss. The concerned hospital would not have been damaged and would not need to close. The medical doctors would not need to go on strike causing so much loss to the hospitals and the patients seeking medical treatment.

Everybody understands the emotion of the relatives that have lost the loved one but it is not the right thing to damage the property and threaten to the life of a doctor. They need to fight for not repeating such a case following the law of the land but not breaking the walls of the hospitals and threatening to take the life of a doctor.

According to the doctors that had attended the patient they did everything possible to save the patient. However, the disease was so that they could not save him despite their best efforts put on saving the patient. No doubt that every hospital except for the government–run hospitals put their best efforts on saving any patient, as that is their bread and butter.

The Everest Nursing Home has been closed since July 05, 2008, as the doctors have been afraid of the attack on them. The patients at the hospital must have suffered from the interruption of medical treatment. The hospital must be losing millions of revenue it would have otherwise generated from the medical services it would provide.

Somebody has to pay for the damages caused by the vandalism. Either the people responsible for breaking the hospital have to pay for repairing the damages or the proprietors have to bear the loss of rebuilding the broken part of the property. Have the people responsible for breaking the hospital thought about it?

NMA has been up in arms closing all medical services except for the emergency service since July 09 demanding the protection of lives and properties of the medical people. The strike has been causing a huge loss to the country and to the medical sector. In fact, the proprietors of private hospitals have been losing the income from the medical services whereas patients that needed urgent medical cares and services might lose even their lives. Losses caused by the strike in money value would be known only after the dispute is settled if the sufferings and losses of patients could be expressed in money value at all.

So, the NMA calling all doctors to go on strike is surely not the right thing to do. The NMA has been punishing the innocent patients for their no fault and to the private hospital owners and operators. The right thing to do to the NMA might be to talk to the government that they have already done. If the government does not take an immediate action as usually the case in the past, the NMA needs to put pressure on the government through the media rather than taking the extreme action of going on strike.

The government as usual does not show keen interest in the public-interest matters. Such a case of damaging the hospitals and threatening the doctors is not the first one. Such cases have happened not only in Kathmandu but in other parts of Nepal, too in the past. The government has not done anything concrete not to repeat such cases again. The right thing for the government to do is to protect the lives and properties of the people, punish the culprit and run the administration by the rule of law but the current government headed by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala works following the rule of thumb and protects the interest of his sycophants neglecting the interest of the people in general. Hence, all sorts of criminals including the high-ranking authorities go unpunished. That is one of the reasons why some people take the law in their own hands.

Nepal is in transition from the despotic Shah dynastic rule to the federal democratic rule. Every responsible citizen needs to do anything in view of making the federal democratic rule a success. Rule of law is the base of any nation for its survival. So, to act according to law is keeping the nation intact.