While it takes years of hard work to be a medical professional, and when this practitioner is supposed to be the only one as per law to practice medicine/dentistry etc. ,unfortunately the name of this noble profession is being spoiled by some unlawful persons with little knowledge who are practicing medicine/dentistry & are being called ‘doctors’ in our society by some illiterates.These persons are actually ‘QUACKS” & are those who have observed and self learnt a few techniques of dentistry/medicine either by assisting medical or dental professionals or inherited it from their families and adopted it as a profession.
Usually uneducated patients etc. visit to any dental clinic/medical clinic without having knowledge that who is going to treat them. In J&K there are so many clinics run by quacks without any fear of government,where the patients not only get inadequate and improper treatment but may have higher risk of getting infected with other transmissible diseases especially COVID-19 these days.
The procedures carried out by these untrained, unethical personnel can also lead to oral cancer, space infections, septicemia & even death due to widespread infections. Their procedures can serve a portal of transmission of Hepatitis B, C, and HIV/AIDS etc. & other life threatening diseases.
A survey conducted by IMA (Indian Medical Association) shows that the number of quacks in our country exceeds the number of doctors. Even if one quack causes the death of one patient in one year due to wrong diagnosis and treatment, nearly 2.5 million silent murders take place across the country. The drugs prescribed by them are fatal, they mostly prescribe unlabelled & non-standardized medicines.
Goverment should not only act strictly with these quacks but also must make aware common public about quackery through various ways of ‘media’ so that lives of innocent and unknowledgeable patients can be saved.
By: Dr. Sameer Masoodi
President, National Medicos organisation J&K.(NMO J&K)