THE relation between physician and patient has generally been of mistrust because of the governance failure. The violent altercation over an allegation of mistreatment of a patient at Sylhet Osmani Medical College Hospital on January 16, leading to the strike of interns, is yet another demonstration of such mistrust. Witnesses say that a few attendants of a patient, on the allegation of wrong treatment, assaulted an intern and hospital staff, when the interns, too, have engaged in violence. The hospital authorities formed a committee to investigate the allegation of wrong treatment. The police have, meanwhile, arrested three for their involvement in violence and vandalism. The hospital administration also claims that medical officers are attending to patients and health services remain uninterrupted. In February 2025, physicians at National Institute of Neurosciences and Hospital in the capital held a similar strike, protesting at an alleged attack by outsourced staff. While the interns in Sylhet called off their work abstention programme on January 18, it still raises serious questions about the lack of workplace safety for physicians and effective grievance mechanisms for patients.
The news of public and private health service providers abstaining from work has become a common reality. The patients’ sufferings and death from medical malpractices have also been reported at routine intervals. In January 2025, the High Court raised serious concern about the widespread medical negligence and asked the government to assess the need for the establishment of an independent authority led by health experts to investigate medical negligence. The plaintiff’s lawyer during the hearing reported more than a hundred cases of medical negligence. In 2024, the Directorate General of Health Services informed the court that out of 15,233 licensed private hospitals and clinics, only 4,123 had renewed their licences while 1,027 hospitals and clinics were found to be running without licence. There is a regulatory vacuum that has contributed to the growing relationship of mistrust between physicians and patients. Whatever may be the case, physicians by profession are ethically obliged to treat patients and it is a breach of their professional oath to choose work abstention as a form of protest given their action causes immense sufferings to patients.
Every physician has a professional, legal and moral duty towards patients. They should not, therefore, resort to strike or abstain from discharging their responsibility to mobilise support for their cause. On the other hand, the government, especially the health and family welfare ministry, should immediately enact a medical negligence law to control and prevent widespread medical malpractice and to end such violence at hospitals.
