Attacks on doctors by relatives of patients unacceptable: President

Kolkata: President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday urged medical practioners to bring in a “human touch” in providing healthcare, and added that ransacking of hospitals by relatives of patients was unacceptable.

“A patient or the relatives of a patient also have their own responsibility to ensure a better healthcare system. Ransacking hospitals or beating up doctors alleging medical negligence (in case a patient dies) is not unacceptable,” the President said at the inauguration of the Indian Institute of Liver and Digestive Sciences (IILDS), the first full-fledged healthcare institute dedicated to liver diseases in eastern India, set up by the West Bengal Liver Foundation in Sonarpur in the southern suburbs of Kolkata.

Batting for a humanitarian outlook on the part of doctors, Mr Mukherjee said that a “human touch” should always complement the advancement of technology in modern healthcare. “A smiling face can cure half the disease. This is a practical truth and if this adds to the competency of a medical practioner, the patient will get the confidence to recover,” he said.

The President lauded the efforts of chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who was present at the event, to rein in private hospitals in Kolkata after complaints of exorbitant charges. “The chief minister here, when she had come across the fact that healthcare had deviated from the concept of service, she spoke with the doctors and other officials concerned and came out with some preventive measures. I have come to Bengal several times for attending various programmes; she is working in (the fields) education and health,” Mr Mukherjee said. The Bengal government has passed a bill aimed at bringing transparency, ending harassment of patients and taking steps to stop medical negligence.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, during her address, said that the other name to health services is service, and giving life to a patient. “You have to see to it that a person has to sell every bit for getting somebody treated,” she said.

The state-of-the-art IILDS, spread over a four-acre plot, has a 100-bed inpatient section. It has a six-bed intensive therapy unit (ITU) and two theatres equipped to carry out all gastrointestinal and hepatopancreatobiliary surgeries including liver transplantation, besides an outpatient section. This is the first institute in eastern India dedicated to liver and digestive sciences.

The outdoor section of the institute has been functioning since February 2016, drawing an average of 50-60 patients daily, said Partha S Mukherjee, project director  of the West Bengal Liver Foundation, an NGO.