Beware of Killers

          Beware of Killers, and Remember

Prevention Is Better Than Cure

Who are you, who am I? We are assets of our family to be lost soon to greed. We are assets to killers who, as agents of others, kill for money. Both the agent, who is remote controlled, and the boss who remains behind the transparent screen, are guided by Greed. The agent forgets the oath (known as the Hippocratic Oath for physicians) taken before embarking on the ‘Noble Profession’ to have compassion, to "First do no harm" (Latin: Primum non nocere) and also to “utterly reject harm and mischief” (Latin: noxamvero et maleficium propulsabo).

They, in a ceremony take, just to forget the next moment, the following oath:

“I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of over treatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

CM Mamata Banerjee with the top representatives
of private hospitals and nursing homes of  WB.
Courtesy: Hindustan Times

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can but I will always look for a path to a cure for all diseases.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.”

(Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University).

    What we see around today in West Bengal is the violation of the covenant. We have disease means we are assets for the violators of the covenant. The family of the sick becomes the easy prey to the greed of the vultures among the medical practitioners. They spend, in many cases, all they have and then lose their assets to the greed of those they believed were their messiahs. The losers are helpless people, unable to seek and find justice in the court of law because they don’t have the capacity to fight protracted battles.

    Antonio could be protected from the greed and cruelty of Shylock because a Portia was there to argue his case in the court of the Venetian Duke (The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare). Should we expect Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will be able to protect the sick in future from the vultures with stringent legislation and the judiciary can go for suo motto action against the culprits? What happens is not the fallout of negligence, but of sheer greed.

   The Chief Minister on 22 February in a meeting at the Town Hall, Kolkata, with the top representatives of dozens of private hospitals and nursing homes of the state, echoed the popular grievances and hauled them up for overcharging patients and shoddy service. 

“Is the kidney racket still going on in your hospital?” lashed out chief minister Mamata Banerjee leaving the representative of one of the prominent private hospitals of Kolkata fumbling for answers. “I will not allow any kidney racket, or baby racket, to run in Bengal,” she remarked while speaking to authorities of Medica Superspeciality Hospital. (Incidentally, CID had investigated a case of alleged kidney racket against the hospital. The case is subjudice.)

“I was speaking with someone from Bangladesh. They told me that they are thinking of not sending patients to your hospital. You charge exorbitantly high,” Mamata Banerjee told Rana Dasgupta, the CEO of Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals. The official tried to answer her queries but faced a torrent of allegations from the chief minister.