Letters

‘‘Physicians, heal thy system’’

In the past few decades the medical profession in India has become corporatized. The doctors have given a goodbye to Hippocrates oath and are interested only in making money. Once a patient falls into their trap he is subjected to unwanted laboratory tests and even unnecessary surgeries and is fleeced thoroughly so that the doctors can make money.

Now Doordarshan Delhi is broadcasting a programme titled Satyameva Jayate on Sundays around 11.30-12.00 Noon. In a couple of these programmes in the month of May 2012 Amir Khan, the famous film actor who anchored the programme exposed the misdemeanors of the medical profession such as many doctors, prescribing costly medicine running into 1000s of rupees when the same medicine with same effect is available for less than Rs 100/-.

Actually he had interviewed some doctors who gave him this kind of information. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) took umbrage and asked for an apology from Amir Khan which he refused.

In this context some responsible and conscientious doctors have sent the above titled letter to the IMA (Indian Medical Association).
M R Rajagopalan
Gandhigram, TN

On Death Bed

Seventy-five year old polit bureau member of Communist Party of India (Maoist) Sushil Roy is gradually pushed towards death due to deliberate medical negligence in Jharkhand Jail, alleges his younger brother Dr Shyamal Roy, who heads a human rights body Dodhichi. Sinking to total blindness, he has a fractured Hip-joint, severe Prostrate enlargement, which I suspect has turned malignant as he often urinates blood. These aside, excruciating pain due to Piles, hypertension, Diabetes, Cervical Spondylitis, and Ischemia are other ailments. The custodial authorities have been indulging in deliberate medical negligence probably out of desperation in scooping out information the police are in search of. I am not concerned with politics nor am I associated with any political party or mass organization thereof. I am concerned about the worrisome deterioration of my elder brother who may die anytime," said Dr Shyamal Roy, before leaving for Ranchi.

The ailing and decrepit Maoist PB member is lodged at the Giridih Mandal Kara but his undertrial detention that began at Midnapore Jail in West Bengal has crossed 86 months. At present he is at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences, Ranchi, but his physical conditions deteriorate further. The RIMS authorities want him to be treated at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.

Roy is "a victim of police vendetta and abuse of law" and denied adequate medical treatment. Roy wrote in a letter to the West Bengal Ex. Chief Miinister (Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee) that one police officer had bluntly told him 'You are not telling anything, only stories. I will frame you in such a case that you have to be in jail for the rest of your life and you will die in jail'. The  Apex Court recently intervened for the release of "80 year-old and ailing Pakistani virologist, Dr Khalil Chishty, on humanitarian grounds".

The UT prisoner Sushil Roy was arrested on 21 May, 2005 and produced at the court of chief judicial magistrate, Midnapore. Till date, 12 cases—all criminal and not political—have been slapped on him of which four were in West Bengal. He got bail in all but thereafter eight cases were framed by the Jharkhand Police but was granted bail in five by Ranchi High Court, got acquitted in one. But he was further detained for a year from August, 2010 under the National Security Act on 17 of August, 2011 and two more cases were invoked against him in Jharkhand (granted bail in one by the Court on 9 July 2012). An appeal for bail is pending at the Ranchi HC after the bail petition was turned down by the district and sessions' court at Giridih.
Charubrata Ray,
Kolkata

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 11, Sep 23 -29 2012