I trust you will be in a great solace. Amen!
I was last time in Kashmir, covering pellet victims and spent a year first time in my hometown. I study in New York City, Union College. I come to Kashmir for my research assignment related to pellet victims and conflict resolution. My dissertation is based on Kashmir identity and its re-emergence. That is a brief about me.
My intention to write this letter is the urgency of my concern that I have faced and encountered last year: The hospital mismanagement, where a medical representative[s], were touting and checking the hospital issued tickets for each patient; selling medicine and pushing the patients to buy this or that medicine or changing the name of the drug on the hospital issued tickets – doing it in a very unprofessional way, as if they were the real or final authority to prescribe medicine to the patient and doctor was none.
I don’t know how you allow these salespeople inside the hospital building that too from morning to evening freely, without proper check.
Nonetheless, I happen to interrupt one such salesperson, and told him why are you doing this? And his response, was awkward, who are you? I told him that I am a citizen of this state, and this is illegal, it is a work of doctor to see a patient and prescribe medicine? What makes you overwrite his hospital issued ticket? They were arrogant and dodged my suggestion as if I was someone ‘othering’ or a foreigner. It might be due to my poor Kashmiri Lingui-franca and their failure to understand what I was trying to convey. They were rude in their behavior and did not understand the facts on how a hospital runs and it is illegal to tout inside the hospital?
I am not against any profession, but there is a proper method of meeting a doctor.
I have made a hypothetical analysis that the patients who take time to heal or cure are because of this illegal practice, where management is allowing these salespeople to misguide the patient, and when God forbid, something happens, a doctor is held responsible for the causes of death or deteriorated health of a patient.
It happens nowhere in the world that any unsolicited person is allowed inside the hospital without permission to sell medicine, it hampers the operations of the hospital and especially where a doctor is dealing with critical patients. Hospitals are calm places everywhere except in Kashmir.
I am sure if you disallow these touting people or salespeople in the hospital, doctors will be able to concentrate more on patients than get distracted by the presence of these touts.
Hospitals are considered pious places, it is a temple for many helpless people. In these temples, a vulnerable patient should not be misguided. He has a hope to get a cure for his malady but he returns with those prescriptions that cause him more trouble and aggravates his pain.
I hope you will take a serious note on my suggestion and disallow these touts in the hospitals.
Warmly
San’na
