HYDERABAD: Violent attacks on doctors in the public health sector has seen an upward trend in recent years. Reports say that 75 per cent of doctors have faced some form of violence at some point of time. The solution lies within, according to the undergraduates pursuing MBBS at Osmania Medical College (OMC), who presented their innovative solutions to the contemporary issues dogging the public healthcare system, at the final round of colloquium held as part of the 11th edition of OSMECON 2021 on Sunday.
“Usually it is the five minutes of anger caused by a month-long unpleasant experience during treatment, which drives the patient to act violently. It is because MBBS doesn’t teach social skills to deal with these situations yet,” observed Fateen Shareef, a medico.
Dr Aloke Mullick, former Military Surgeon and CEO, OMNI Hospitals, who was one of the jurors at the contest, felt that those doctors, who explained things properly to the patient and their kin, were less susceptible to violence. “When a relationship of trust changes to commerce, as seen in corporate hospitals, the effect of that also affects government hospitals as the mentality of the patients has changed. We need to ask ourselves why these violent acts, which hardly used to happen 20 years ago, have become frequent now,” he observed.
Multiple participating teams emphasised the need to have qualified social workers, psychological counsellors or trained volunteers to act as a liaison between the doctors and patients. Some suggested having a clear hierarchy of conflict escalation and resolution overseen by a professional from the quality and safety department, while some felt conflicts were happening due to contrasting opinions of doctors.
Call for SOS boxes
As a response to an attack, medicos suggested having SOS emergency call boxes and sirens to report it swiftly