Hooliganism Against Hospitals and Medical Personnel: Weak Law Unable to Deal With the Situation

Abstract

In the popular imagination of a malpractice suit instigated against a medical professional, a prior act of Hooliganism and Vandalism by patients relative straddles an anomalous but a certainly presumptive space. This is ironic. Medicine and its practice is the highest form of a scientific endeavour set sail to prevent the frailty of a human body succumbing to the vagaries of nature yet a little deviation in outcome in present day scenario leads to such devastating acts by patient’s relatives/attendants that in certain Western countries many promising practitioners have left their practice. In India this has become a growing trend. Grievously injuring an attending doctor for little or no “fault” has become a very common scene. This has increased to such an extent that in a recent happening, a 75 years old physician was beaten to death by patient’s attendant. A complete negative coverage by media lame duck laws and hesitant politicians and judiciary, has added fuel to fire. The present paper is aimed to study such a happening with reasoning as to the causation.