IMA AP expresses concern over violence against doctors, demands comprehensive legislation

Vijayawada: Raising concern over the attacks on medical professionals, the Andhra Pradesh chapter of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has demanded comprehensive legislation against such cases of violence.

This came during the IMA state executive meeting held at Guntur. IMA-AP state president Dr G Ravi Krishna and secretary Dr P Phanidhar expressed concern over attacks on medical professionals. The IMA-AP opposed the integrated medical system because it will be bad for the general public's health and has asked the union government for assistance in stopping the mixing of modern medicine with traditional medical disciplines. 

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Dr Ravi Krishna referred to a recent case in Kerala, where a young female doctor named Dr Vandana Das was stabbed by a prisoner she was treating and was severely injured. This was evidence of police incompetence. He regretted that, despite some laws to ensure the safety of medical professionals, its implementation was flawed; as a result, IMA had been pressing the Central government for a comprehensive law, reports Deccan Chronicles.

According to Dr Phanidhar, in the cases of medical negligence against doctors, the law enforcement department must adhere to a set of standard operating procedures that have been established by numerous courts, including the Supreme Court of India. He claimed that IMA required an SOP to be created and distributed to every police station in this regard.

The IMA-AP praised the AP administration for expanding the scope of the flagship programme Aarogyasri to include many more diseases and also requested the government to release a sufficient amount to the network hospitals promptly to allow them to cover their expenses. The IMA-AP claimed that the Central government's proposal for integrated medicine in medical education was a wrong decision by the government as mixing modern medicine with alternative medicinal systems can be dangerous. They claimed that since Ayurveda, homoeopathy, and other medical systems are different philosophically, it would be wrong to combine them all.

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