India: ‘Doctors now doing defensive treatment’
DMC registrar says post-Max hospital incident, public trust in doctors seems to be at an all-time low
The Delhi Medical Council provides for registration of medical practitioners and maintains a live register. It also looks into cases of medical negligence and is currently investigating the allegations against Max Super Speciality Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, where a newborn declared dead by the doctors was later found to be alive. DMC’s registrar Dr. Girish Tyagi tells Bindu Shajan Perppadan that the ‘spat’ between the public and the medical care service providers has resulted in an uneasy relationship. While public trust seems to be at an all-time low, the doctors too are practising what can best be described as “defensive medical treatment”:
Where has the Max case probe reached? Do you think it has taken a toll on the doctor-patient relationship
Both the Delhi Police and the Max Hospital have submitted their reports and we will now look at whether any medical negligence has taken place in this case. The Max case — as is the case with any other incident— has definitely affected the faith of the public in doctors and private hospitals, and the doctors are now doing what you can describe as ‘defensive medical treatment’. It’s true that the people-doctor relationship has been badly hit. The doctors may be prescribing more tests to ensure that they miss nothing in case the patient decides to go to court, and the patients feel that they are being subjected to unnecessary tests. This is a catch-22 sitution for everyone involved.
What is the way forward?
The government has to step in and provide strong medical support to the general public. We have to have good medical infrastructure, skill base, human resource and the assurance that this facility will grow with the expansion in population. You can’t strain the government hospital to the point of break and beyond and then complain.
What is the role of private hospitals then?
Private hospital aren’t a charity-based venture. Regulating private hospitals and drug pricing are not enough. But you have to understand that no doctor wants to do anything wrong to his patient. His aim is always to give his good service to save life. And it’s not that medical negligence cases are restricted to private hospitals only. Errors in medical science occur and yes doctors have to train themselves to perfection, but still errors happen.
Our endeavour is to ensure that we have enough checks and balances to reduce errors to zero as we are dealing with human beings.
How many medical negligence cases do you get on an average?
The council gets 20-50 cases a month and they are against both private and government doctors. There are cases of overcharging too.
The council investigates complaints of medical negligence and professional misconduct against the doctors. We take action only against individual doctors and not hospitals as the latter are under the purview of Director, Health services. Our function is to regulate the practices of modern scientific system of medicine in NCT of Delhi, according to the Delhi Medical Council Act 1997.
