The worship of Mammon

I wonder whether the general deterioration in ethical standards is not part and parcel of the new social ethos where everything is judged by the yardstick of monetary wealth. Nostalgia for a bygone era when, supposedly, things were better, must be tinged with the realisation that in those days opportunities and temptations to stray from the straight and narrow path were fewer and less attractive.

I provide an example. For those in government hospitals, at least in Tamil Nadu, there was very little competition from the full time private practitioner. There was hardly any private hospital which could match government teaching hospitals in facilities. The situation has changed dramatically and today it is the private, especially the corporate sector, which is better equipped. A burgeoning middle class has made private medical care an extremely lucrative proposition for doctors. Doctors in government teaching hospitals, permitted private practice, have one foot in each camp and would like to have their cake and eat it too. The unhealthy competition for patients has engendered most medical malpractices.

One specific point worries me. You have implied that it is unethical to treat a patient who is already under the care of another doctor’s care without his permission. I feel this is a wrong attitude.

First and most important, does it not infringe on the patient’s democratic right to choose whom he will be treated by? Second, how can a doctor in a government hospital refuse to treat a patient who may have initially taken treatment in some private facility? Third, how many doctors, either in the private or public sector, will actually refer patients to another in their own specialty?