Consumer court and its jurisdiction

One of my friends, a famous orthopedic surgeon met me just before I was about to leave for Australia for my advance diploma asked me to write some thing about doctors, especially the way they are being dragged in consumer forums these days. Now I must clear here that I am neither a writer nor the diploma I am talking about has any importance, both of these are kind of time pass and nothing to do with this article. So, when I tried to convince the doctor about my limitations, he still insisted that I should write something about it for the sake of justification or importance of doctors being taken to consumer courts as if hey were selling any commodity.

The doctor had a point to prove

I agree and hope all of you who are reading this post should agree to it that there really is no point in taking a doctor to consumer court. Doctor generally provides another life to his patients, helps give them relief from different diseases, Gives them glucose, provides them with newer hearts, kidneys, ear, nose, new eyes and in case of the doctor whom I am writing about, changes knees, and other bones related items. Please keep in mind that I have no intention to include those particular government doctors who provide medicines to private medical stores but I have a feeling that they too have the welfare of the patients in their minds because some of the medicines available in government dispensaries are otherwise rare in open market or very costly. But, for this good work, you do not become eligible to take him to consumer courts. 

What a doctor can do for you

Apart from points I mentioned above you should consider other important aspect of the subject. Have you ever thought that what is the cost of medical studies or how much money one has to spend to become a doctor? Moreover, to become a doctor one has to study science, various branches of science that in itself is a costly matter. One has to spend thousands of rupees for taking tuitions during studies then for preparations for entrance exams. And when one comes out of medical college as a full-fledged doctor after seven years, establishing a nursing home is another time consuming and costly affair. 

And if a doctor charges you few thousand rupees for his services and providing you so many facilities including a furnished air-conditioned room, nursing services, operation theater, physiotherapy, medicines, pathology, radiology etc all in one place, you should be thankful to him. And you are planning to take him to consumer courts just for a simple reason- something went wrong. No one ever thinks about the services one gets of nicely dressed and efficient women whom you call sisters who always remain ready to take best of your care, no matter what time of night or day, everything included in doctor’s fees. 

But are you eligible for the facilities 

It all depends on your eligibility whether you deserve to utilize facilities of a big nursing home or private hospital loaded with all these services. We all know that millions of people fell sick in our country but their reach either is limited to government hospitals, local fake doctors or self-styled Fakirs, village Vaids (self styled doctors) etc who give their patients self-made medicines. Now it all depends on the fate of the patient whether he gets rid of his illness or his life itself but no one ever thinks in terms of taking these self-appointed doctors to a consumer court. As far big people are concerned, it all depends on their standards. If the patient is a V.V.I.P or a big politician or someone big from the corporate world, he never cares about such nursing homes but goes to foreign countries. The interesting fact is that they invariably find the same Indian doctors treating them everywhere they go. Even in the U.S or any other developed countries, most of the doctors, nurses and technicians are from India but the facilities provided there are far superior. 

Actually, the rich and influential people take the best advantage of nursing homes. Here they come and get admitted leaving everything to doctors and nurses who leave nothing to chance to extract as much money from the pockets of the patients for the services rendered. I must quote here that the big saints who treat and bless public in their Ashrams, find best results for their own illness in these five star nursing homes irrespective of number of Rudraksha or bracelet and necklaces made of Rudraksha they wear on their different body parts. No, I don’t support the idea of consumer courts for doctors which would only lower their self confidence same like our police force has not strong morally to face criminals despite having all the powers I their hands. We should not demoralize our doctors. You see if doctors treated badly, no one would want to be a doctor in future and if the doctors will not be there, there will not be nurses as well and if nurses will not be there, the rich and influential will not find any reason to admit in a hospital. No, we cannot take a risk of loosing such a noble profession by dragging doctors to consumer courts. 

How alert is our system

We have hundreds of thousands of doctors in our country who have never seen a medical college or even a college but they are practicing medicine in villages and towns. Some of the so-called doctors have never even gone to schools but they are successfully treating patients, thanks to our governments and our corrupt officials. Some of the credit goes to our laws that have no stricter provisions to restrict such practitioners, one can see unauthorized RMP doctors in every village and even cities treating patient openly and earning good money. Everything is going on smoothly for decades under the very nose of administration and no one seeks any action unless a mishap takes place. As far government doctors are concerned, the only punishment possible is a temporary transfer in the nearby hospital. In case of private doctors, there is no punishment and our government is neither willing nor interested to curve the irregularities going on for such a long time resulting in loss of money and health of unsuspecting public.  

Back to consumer courts

If we think that doctors, nurses, pathologists, technicians bard-boys or nurses should be brought under the jurisdiction of consumer courts we can do that easily but the fact is no medical professional intentionally wants to harm his patients. It is almost like bringing a judge to consumer courts for a decision challenged in higher court and if the judge ruling the lower court judge wrong. Not all patients can survive forever or not all diseases cured within the period as per desired by patients and their relatives. 

Now this has become a fashion to make a big roar or even go the extent of unlawful activities by breaking the hospital equipment and manhandling hospital staff, if a patient does not recover as per the desires of relatives of patients. The nursing home owners let the patient discharge without payment in order to avoid bad publicity. Most cases going to consumer courts are those where the nursing homes insisted on not letting their patients go home unless their payments cleared. The basic need is to see that there is no place for unauthorized medical practitioners those are engaged in unlawful practice and we have strict effective rules in place with a strict vigil on them. Moreover, government hospitals should have all the facilities so that poor people do not have to run to the private nursing homes to pay a very high price for their treatments.