Bihar MP tells docs to mend ways, or get thrashed

Doctors in Bihar have taken umbrage over  a threat issued by controversial MP from Madhepura, Pappu Yadav, about "jan thukai" (public thrashing) if medical practitioners fail to mend their ways.

The suspended RJD MP recently got three patients released from different private nursing homes and  got a body handed over to the kin after the patients' relatives could not pay the bills running into lakhs.

"The entire health system in Bihar is in a coma. The government hospitals are on deathbed. Private nursing homes, which have mushroomed and running without licences and facilities, are fleecing gullible patients. When the law enforcing agencies turn a blind eye, then it's the job of an elected representative to ensure justice to the victims," the five-term Lok Sabha member told DH.

Arguing that he had no axe to grind against those doctors who do their job honestly, the self-styled vigilante Pappu warned "lootere doctors" (cheat doctors), who were part of the nexus between touts, nursing homes and medical practitioners to be "ready for jan  thukai  and blackening of their faces if they did not mend their ways".  

Some private hospitals have registered an FIR against Yadav charging him with goondaism. "If a crusade against "lootere" doctors is goondaism, then let it be so. I will not relent till they give up fleecing patients," said Yadav.

Meanwhile, the doctors' association here has expressed its concern over Yadav's vigilantism. "This kind of behaviour from a public representative is deplorable. If he harms anyone then it will be very difficult for any doctor to work here," lamented Dr Shahjanand, president of the Bihar unit of Indian Medical Association (IMA).