When docs act like children

To witness two groups of doctors, one on the side of the VC and the other, pro VC protagonists, facing each other in threatening posture and getting involved in scuffles, is a spectacle that no person, least of all educated and responsible persons that those doctors are supposed to be, can savour. It is nothing less than tragic. And that is what happened in BBSMMU on Saturday that effectively disrupted healthcare services for a considerable period of time, although the VC has claimed that that the operation of the hospital was not dislocated.

The behaviour of the warring doctors, to the detriment of the wellbeing of the patients, whose health, and indeed some of their lives, rested in the doctors' hands, was strikingly painful. We wonder whether the feuding physicians have forgotten the Hippocratic Oath which, among other things, enjoins them to abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption.

Unfortunately, the situation stems from alleged corruption linked to the recruitment of nurses and exposes the abject lack of ethics in these people. And these inevitably are the consequences of appointments at the senior levels getting blatantly politicised. The most important lesson that one can take from the incident is that when political affiliation is given preference over merit and professionalism what we saw happen in the hospital will be repeated. We hope that the health ministry would initiate investigation into the allegations of corruption against the VC and also take appropriate action for the gross breach of order wrought entirely for personal monetary gains.