0 
0 By Dr. Ramesh Kumaran
I used to work as a medical doctor and, like many doctors, I suffered from depression and anxiety.
I was very compliant with my medications and consultations. But our hospital industry does not recognize the needs of people having mental health issues, even if they are doctors and belonging to the birds-of-same feather class.
The suicide rate and substance abuse among doctors is obviously very high due to the high stress level they face in their workplace. Tons of pethidine ampoules were unearthed from the septic tank of the hospital where I worked.
Our hospital industry does not spare the doctor’s work force. They will squeeze their marrow out in the name of work, paying very little after that. There is no job security for doctors having mental health issues. They can kick you out of the job any time. And that is what happened to me on several occasions.
Even the psychiatrists do not have the accountability to ensure that I do not lose my work. Because work is a very important factor in anybody’s life. If you are deprived of that, then it can only compound your pre-existing mental health issues. But these psychiatrists, they just sit leisurely inside their ivory tower OPD’s and prescribe toxins, coffins and railway platform tickets.
Is this the way to practice psychiatry? Do their toxic drugs fix the employment issues of the patient? They don’t. The employment issue requires a different set of executive skills on the the part of the psychiatrist which they are not exercising. In India there are job reservations for people with psychiatric illness in their respective fields. But such jobs are being hacked into by the “normal” guys.
Is it a crime for a doctor to get depressive illness?
It’s not his fault. Because of the high level of stress associated with the long and tortuous learning curve to become a doctor and the high demands and expectations placed upon you, one day makes you depressed. So just because I’m a doctor, it does not automatically imply that I won’t fall sick at all for the above mentioned reasons.
The treatment that I got was also very shoddy, which happened when I voluntarily entered a rehabilitation center. We have rehab centers here,which in my opinion do not have proper licencing. They are neither accountable nor answerable to anyone. Their irrational combination of drugs caused pituitary dysfunction in me. And all these incidents happened while I was working. It all happened because the hospital work place did not provide me adequate support.
God save us from these psychiatrists and give us our daily bread or food or whatever it is that you eat, should be our prayer from dawn to dusk.
A physically handicapped, the so called people with loco-motor disability never runs the risk of losing the job. But someone who has a psychiatry issue will not only lose his job, but will also not secure another one in our country.
I used to put in more hard and smart work than others because the Damocles sword of depression was hanging upon me, while others were free from it and was always scared that I may lose it someday.
But such hard work is not appreciated by the hospital industry because they do not want liabilities called the “depressed class of work force”. All others are welcome. So long as this depressed class is working well, all is well in the work place. And I had to put in a great deal of effort, because the work place was very hostile. Which meant that they were flogging an already tired horse.
The problem is not the horse, but the one who wields the flog.
More and more work for less and less money that was paid to me. The moment depression strikes you a second time, which can happen anytime for some “lucky” guys like me,they will throw you out. They won’t throw you out because you are depressed, but will find some other excuse by which you are made a scapegoat. And this happens not once,but several times. Eventually it becomes very demoralizing.
Depression and anxiety cannot be so debilitating that you lose everything that you have, unless external forces present within our work place makes it so. And the people who are behind such dirty games are none other than the doctors. If they had the will power, character and respected the dignity of other sincere colleagues afflicted with depression, such repeated expulsions from the work places would not have had happened as it happened in my case.
But these people are really a very selfish class of people. A layman cannot be thrown out of his job, because they have a very strong political clout to oppose any such move.
The doctors are inhabiting some nether world. It’s very difficult to approach the vast majority of doctors for any kind of consultation. They are patient friendly, but not yet psychiatry friendly. They still discriminate between these two terms.
Thank you.
1in4 UK Book Store:
[amazon_link asins='1977009336' template='ProductGrid' store='iam1in4-20' marketplace='US' link_id='ffcb5f04-1297-11e8-8b2c-c721ea9703cc']
UNITED STATES
UNITED KINGDOM
