It was a warm day; my mother stood at the school gate, waiting for me. She was there with the other mother, all whispering in disbelief. A former patient had stabbed a homeopathic doctor. Nashik was a small town. Everyone knew each other. The news sent shivers down everyone’s spines. Many had sought treatment from this doctor. Many knew his family.
Fast forward to June 2019 when doctors went on strike in West Bengal because a violent mob attacked an intern. I thought of the many doctors who’ve treated my family and me over the years. I thought of them and their families—the threat they face from violent mobs, the long hours they work and the quick blame they receive.
Ask Roshan, an emergency physician at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), and he’ll tell you what an average day looks like for him. He feels like a soldier in a war zone with minimum resources and overburdened systems. The emergency wing receives around 450–500 patients in a day, most of them very sick.
“I thought I’ll never be able to make it through MBBS. There’s constant pressure that you are responsible for human life. But my friend circle kept me going.”, he said.
As I write this, I remember the evening when my mother returned from the deceased doctor’s funeral. The helpless cries of the family rang in her ears. The doctor’s little daughter did not understand that her father would never return. The doctor’s widow wailed. She was inconsolable. The doctor’s clinic remained eerily empty until the day I left the city.