With doctors going on strike, here are citizen suggestions to improve trust in the healthcare system
- • 63% say doctor’s compensation should not be dependent on the revenue they generate for the hospital
- • 93% want doctors to write the name of salts
- • 74% want right for patients to replace items used by them while in hospital
- • 88% want right for patients to seek independent review of doctor
17th June 2019, New Delhi: After various cases of assault on doctors in West Bengal, the Indian Medical Association has announced a nation-wide strike.
The issue of patients’ family taking law in their own hands and beating up Doctors must be dealt with very strictly and public is in full support of that. Other than loosing a near and dear one, the frustration of many families however is how hospitals and the medical system treats them, the mistrust, the overcharging, the unnecessary tests and procedures and many a times not having the empathy. Doctors however say that it is the hospital system which enforces such rules but they have to bear the brunt of the patient family’s ire.
Ths has been a subject of discussion in various LocalCircles communities’. Citizens through LocalCircles’ polls have identified several areas which if considered and implemented will lead to increased public trust in the healthcare system which may lead to reduction in such cases against Doctors.
The results show that citizens want the government to make regulations that are oriented towards the citizens and enforce them tightly. With many state governments in the process of enforcing the Clinical Establishment Act, it is all the more important that citizens ask are listened to.
The survey received more than 40,000 votes. The first poll asked citizens what the compensation model of private hospitals for doctors should be. 45% said they should be on salary only with strictly no incentives, 29% said they should be on salary plus incentives based on individual contribution, 18% said they should get salary plus incentives based on hospital profitability and 8% could not decide how it should be done.
63% citizens say a doctor’s compensation in hospital should not depend on the number of procedures conducted or tests prescribed by them
Many citizens had reported that doctors are given financial targets by hospitals and are incentivised every month for achieving them. This leads to doctors unnecessarily prescribing tests and medicines to the patients, thereby increasing their bills by many folds.
Next question asked what the doctors should be doing when it comes to prescribing medicines. 29% said they should only name the salt, 17% said they should name the salt along with the top brand medicine with it, 47% said they should name the salt along with the cheapest medicine with it and 7% said they were not sure what should be done.
93% citizens want Doctors to always write name of salt when prescribing medicines
It has been reported that some pharmaceutical companies bribe doctors in form of gifts and holidays so that they prescribe their medicines to the patients, even if there are cheaper alternatives available in the market.
When asked if the patients should be given the right to replace all items they use in a hospital before discharge, 74% agreed with it and 16% disagreed with it. 10% remained unsure.
74% citizens want patients to have the right to replace all items used by them in a hospital before discharge
Following poll asked if hospitals should be charging the same amount for a procedure for both insurance and cash patients. 83% agreed with it and 12% disagreed with it.
83% citizens want hospitals to charge the same amount for both insurance and cash patients
The government has made some rules to protect the patient’s interest, but they are poorly enforced. Hospitals find ways to play with the rules to increase their profit margins.
On the question if the patients in a hospital the right have to seek an independent review, 88% responded in an affirmative and only 9% responded in a negative.
88% citizens want the right to seek an independent review of doctor at hospital discharge
The last poll asked if the doctor’s fee in hospital should be billed directly from doctors to patient. 81% said it was a good idea whereas 11% voted against it.
81% citizens want Doctor’s fee in hospital to be billed directly from Doctor to Patient
About LocalCircles
LocalCircles takes Social Media to the next level and makes it about Communities, Governance and Utility. It enables citizens to connect with communities for most aspects of urban daily life like Neighborhood, Constituency, City, Government, Causes, Interests and Needs, seek information/assistance when needed, come together for various initiatives and improve their urban daily life. LocalCircles is free for citizens and always will be!
Akshay Gupta - media@localcircles.com, +91-8585909866
All content in this report is a copyright of LocalCircles. Any reproduction or redistribution of the graphics or the data therein requires the LocalCircles logo to be carried along with it. In case any violation is observed LocalCircles reserves the right to take legal action.
Enter your email & mobile number and we will send you the instructions.
Note - The email can sometime gets delivered to the spam folder, so the instruction will be send to your mobile as well
