There was a time when you ranted about bad service at an establishment to anyone who could hear you, mostly your immediate family and friends. Then, when social media came along, you could post about your frustrating experience and have friends and family commiserate with you. These days however, if you don’t like service that you paid for, you beat up someone.
Dr Babu Redkar was assaulted at his Carmona clinic by a woman who blamed him for her mother’s death. She says that she brought her mother to the clinic but the doctor did not attend to her. Dr Redkar, on the other hand, states that he did not have the facilities to attend to her and so recommended that she be taken to the nearest hospital. The woman later beat him up for his ‘negligence’. The police have intervened and a case has been filed against the woman, but even if the doctor was negligent, resorting to violence is an appalling move. It cannot be condoned, from any angle.
Only recently, a few similar incidents were reported in Maharashtra and Karnataka. In early January a parliamentarian attacked a doctor at a private hospital in Karwar for not attending to his mother properly. A little more than a week later, in another part of Karnataka, a doctor was beaten up by the relatives of a deceased baby. They claimed that the baby was not treated properly and hence passed away. In late March a few women beat up a doctor in Sion, Mumbai, for not administering proper treatment to a young girl. The incident that made headlines took place in the middle of March, when over 30 people brutally beat a doctor in Dhule, Maharashtra. This was captured on camera and was shown on all the news channels. The injured doctor’s crime was that he delayed treatment to a patient.
Since when has the public been able to decide what constitutes proper treatment? Isn’t that the jurisdiction of medical professionals? Lynch mobs that beat up doctors and other staff are not just an example of the lack of patience these days but also proof that we as a race think we know better than anyone else, including someone who has studied and worked in that particular field.
The lack of a forum for redressal may lead to further frustration but this is where the government can act swiftly and create laws that allow the public to claim negligence. However, nothing justifies actions like what happened in Karwar, Dhule, and most recently, Carmona. These people should be tried for assault. We cannot allow ourselves to turn into savages, people who resort to violence when we do not get our way.
