Kozhikode, May 09: Indian Medical Association today urged the Kerala government to set up an expert committee to investigate criminal charges levelled against doctors while discharging their duties to prevent "filing of bogus cases" against them. "Today, doctors in the state are working under tremendous pressure due to constant harassment they face on charges of negligence of duty whenever there is a casualty," IMA state president Dr K T Cheriyan and general secretary Dr T Suresh Kumar told reporters here. Stating that as many as 1800 cases under consumer protection act were pending against doctors, they said the figure amounted to one out of every 10 doctors in the state.
"If this situation is allowed, doctors can't function in a free manner," they said, adding an expert committee should be set up immediately to look into the merits of such charges before entertaining cases. IMA also asked the government to form a state communicable diseases centre to effectively deal with diseases like cholera and malaria in the state. Although necessary steps like setting up of separate cells had been initiated at the international airports to screen air passengers for the SARS virus, it would be very difficult to handle the situation in the eventuality of outbreak of the disease, it added. Bureau Report