LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Aamir Khan’s TV documentary on unethical doctors

I read with interest the article When TV leads the charge in the July edition of Indian Link

As much as all the social evils unearthed by the visionary Aamir Khan are close to my heart and I would do anything to help them eradicate these, the following letter is my formal protest.

On behalf of Sydney-based Australian Indian Medical Graduates Association (AIMGA), I am submitting the following critical appraisal of the recently highly publicised documentary Satyamev Jayate uncovering the appalling exploitations of the health system in India by a significant minority of the medical community.

As expatriates with deep-rooted interest in India, we genuinely feel active participants of the progress India makes in the future. There has been an outcry and protest not only within the nation but internationally against the poorly regulated medical work force as exposed by this documentary.

We are proud when India makes headlines in its list of accomplishments and are just as affected and tarnished when it ranks in the list of corrupt and dysfunctional societies. Despite living for generations in another country the generalisation and stereotyping can not be erased unless there are genetic factors to minimise the façade. Therefore there are two factors which personally arouse the strong emotions to any adverse report: one as an Indian and other as a compassionate human.

On behalf of my organisation I would like to bring this to the attention of the Indian government, Medical Council of India and Global Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, demanding their urgent response to the misdemeanour of corrupt doctors who have irreversibly damaged the lives of vulnerable patients who put their trust and their assets in the hands of these incompetent and unethical healers.

In 2012 when transparency, equal rights and opportunities, protection of vulnerable groups and minimisation of unfair advantage is the essential part of growth and development, the Medical Council of India is still in its infancy, far from a powerful body like most of the developed countries where medical councils play the role of a stringent regulatory authority protecting the rights and safety of the patients.

I commend Mr Aamir Khan for the documentary he painfully made as a passionate Indian who wants his country to equally embrace its assets and liabilities. Corruption in India is beginning to intrude its grass roots which may inadvertently bias the perception of our future generations with altered or impaired baseline of human honesty.

AIMGA in its all sincerity would like to see that the medical profession in India remains a highly trusted, competent, skilled, honest and compassionate group, made up of practitioners who deliver care to all who need it within the rules of centuries-old Vedic philosophy and in its modern form of Hippocratic oath.

Shailja Chaturvedi

Australian Indian Medical Graduates Association