PHOTO: REUTERS
KARACHI: Media and healthcare organisations need to take trust-building measures so that they can work for the benefit of the people.
These views were expressed by Liaquat National Hospital and Medical College (LNMC) Medical Director Dr Salman Faridi, while addressing a seminar on 'Healthcare Under Threat: Violence, Litigation, Errors and other Challenges,' held at LNMC on Saturday.
Faridi emphasised that issues pertaining to the reputation of doctors cannot be swept under the rug. "It is time to stop playing the blame game and treating medical professionals as scapegoats. Everybody makes mistakes, the world is neither smooth nor perfect," he said.
Representing law enforcement agencies, Sindh Police DIG East Amir Farooqi said that the current approach of police is very careful in cases involving doctors. Given the current situation of increasing violence against doctors, police are working to the best of their potential to handle cases as sensitively as possible, he added.
He said this during a session on 'Threats to Healthcare Professionals', which was also attended by Advocate Faisal Siddiqui, orthopedic surgeon Professor Zaki Idrees and Citizens-Police Liaison Committee Chief Zubair Habib.
Stressing on the need for having regulatory bodies in the healthcare sector, Habib said that regulatory bodies need to be fortified so that people can have confidence in the system again. "People take the law into their own hands when they feel they are not being heard," he added.
Discussing mob culture, Professor Idrees remarked, "Why are mobs never held accountable but doctors are constantly under the threat of violence." He lamented that the system doesn't protect doctors.
Advocate Siddiqui, speaking about the law, explained that negligence can be of many types and can be a civil liability or a criminal liability. Once the nature of the case is understood, it can be dealt with in the required manner, he said.
Siddiqui further spoke on the causes of violence against doctors. "The explosion of media, increasing burden on healthcare due to overpopulation, general breakdown of society and lack of alternative means are the reasons why people react in such ways," he said. It is the age of rage, he added.
In the session 'Understanding Medical Negligence', panelists expressed their views on how medical negligence is different from human error.
Professor Bushra Shirazi said, "Medical negligence is when one of the steps in the standard procedure has been eliminated altogether while an error is when all the steps are followed but a mistake has been made."
The last session 'Role of Media in Healthcare Journalism' focused on the role that media plays in spreading violence against doctors. The panelists included journalists Mazhar Abbas, Mubashir Zaidi, Dr Qurat-ul-Aman Siddiqui and LNH Public Relations Manager Anjum Rizvi.
Zaidi discussed the importance of communication between public relations departments of healthcare organisations and the media to curb sensationalism. "Sensationalism happens when there is a vacuum. If media is not facilitated, they sensationalise the issue," he said. Talking about the pressures created by media, Zaidi said, "Even in the Nashwa case, the authorities decided to seal the hospital after media built pressure."
Mazhar Abbas said "It is important that media verifies facts before publishing them and healthcare organisations’ public relations teams should assist them."
Anjum Rizvi spoke about the lack of training of health journalists. "We don't do responsible health reporting because there is no institution or organisation to train reporters. This is a sensitive area and needs to be dealt with the utmost care but the media fails to understand this," he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 16th, 2019.
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