All of us depend on doctors. Especially emergency doctors can be our blessings in disguise.  For emergency doctors being available 24 hours is very essential as they never know when they may be needed.  But like all employees, doctors too have problems. They have problems like overtime, insufficient wages and many others. In these situations they also voice their troubles and in severe situations they feel the necessity of strikes. However in these situations ethical problems arise. There have been many cases where patients have died or their conditions worsened during strikes due to unavailability of doctors.

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Many doctors feel that these ethical problems make them feel threatened and are used to keep them shut. It is like ‘Don’t say or take the backlash’. But if we view from the other side, we see that there are many valid points. The Hippocratic Oath all doctor’s take, assures that the doctors will always be there for their patients.

Are they then failing to carry out their promises?

Under human rights, everyone has the right to strike; taking away this right will only anger the employees and put more pressure on them. Forcing someone to stay at work when there is something fundamentally wrong is not good for us. If we put more pressure on these workers and oppress them then they will not be able to concentrate on their jobs, and fatal mistakes will be made. Giving them the right to tell the government something is wrong with the way workers for essential services are treated in the only way the Government will listen. After all they are also humans, what else can a laborer do to fight injustice?

However, it is not acceptable if they take strikes and that puts risk on the public. It is unfair and not acceptable if they use the public as a bargaining chip to get what they want.

In conclusion, I think doctors should not be allowed to go on strike. They are free to make their demands in any other way that does not put the public at risk. They are essential for our well- being and if they neglect their duty it puts all of us in peril.

 

-Adyesha