So I’m back on COVID again, but a few eventful things happened in the ED in the last 2 weeks which i now feel comfortable sharing. So here it goes.

A patient and his relatives got aggressive and ended up assaulting 2 doctors, one of them being yours truly. Fortunately, neither of us were seriously hurt, but the apathy I’d been fortunate enough to only witness to so far, came up front and centre.

After some dilly dallying, we’ve filed an FIR and the police has assured us of action. But something that kept recurring in my head before the FIR was this: what if the patient / his brother turn out to be well connected individuals?

What if they are able to extract my name/ address/ number from the complaint? And then target me outside the law? This is known to happen, and it’s usually ended up with grave consequences. That made me hesitate a lot before I went ahead.

You can put up as many banners regarding the strict punishment that is apparently meted out to those who assault healthcare workers, but it doesn’t deter people. Emotions and motivations for violence can’t be stemmed.

Is there a solution? Yup. It’s to invest time and energy in systemically making advances to ensure people trust their doctors. And if not anything else, be patient enough to hear them out and carry out civilised conversations.

Unfortunately the medical sector is just as disorganised and fragmented as others are in India. And the questionable actions of a few impact the many. Until we can reach some common ground on how approach this trust deficit, it’ll remain an occupational hazard. End.