doctor doctor

i am a snob – the kind who turns up her nose at anything that is not the Hindu, the Beeb and NDTV (of course, i also regularly junk out on TOI behind my back).

this morning, however, the Star News anchor did something that i haven't seen anyone on NDTV do in the past few weeks. he asked a spokesperson of the anti-reservation protest “how come the patients are having to bear the brunt of the doctors’ ire?”

our good doctor’s brilliant rationalization of the work-shirk was “at least there are qualified doctors today. tomorrow, when the 40% reservation comes into force… the best doctors go abroad in any case. the ones left in the country will be the quacks who came in on reservation”.

so, if your ultimate humanitarian mission is to serve the dying masses of the United States, why bother wasting a heavily subsidized medical seat in India? go there rightaway and leave the wannabe-quack and his fighting chance of a reservation alone. At least, he'll stay back to hold up the tattered bones of the quack healthcare system of a quack third-world democracy.

ya ya, i am an angry and incoherent woman. but at least i had enough empathy for the sick to have chosen NOT to become a doctor - i believe a doctor must be no less than god and i am a lesser being, susceptible to lapses of temper. so, my blood boils when i see these protestors violating every oath by Hippocrates… or has it been renamed Hypocritic's Oath?

fine, our stands on reservation are different. i could live with that. but the fact is that you are refusing to tend to the sick – how can i respect you now? is this the mark of your merit that you couldn't think of any other way of registering your protest but by holding the people to ransom?

oh and while i steam some more and watch Star News, think about this, Mr.I-got-into-AIIMS-on-Merit - who’s the butcher now?