F

ollowing the arrest of their fellow practitioners over malpractice charges by the Supreme Court'€™s ruling, which stemmed from the death of a young mother during a cesarean, waves of protests from doctors sent ripples across the nation.

The medical community staged a rally to support its fellow members, demanding the ruling be reviewed and the doctors be freed immediately. They feared the verdict would provide a legal basis to criminalize doctors if a patient dies, despite their best efforts to uphold the highest standards of ethical conduct to save patients'€™ lives.

The Supreme Court found the three doctors; Dewa Ayu Sasiary Prawani, Hendy Siagian and Hendry Simanjuntak, guilty of negligence resulting in death and sentenced them to 10 months in prison.

They failed to receive the written consent of the family or patient before conducting the surgery.

In their defense, they argued they had done their best to save both the mother and child. Sadly, the mother died of heart failure by a gas embolism.

There is obviously a difference between deliberate acts of malice and non-intentional mistakes, even though the outcome is fatal in both cases.

Meanwhile, some legal experts say the verdict is a way of rooting out harmful errors. It was also handed down by a judge with high judicial integrity, whose decisions are perceived as accountable and just.

This is to say that the professional class of doctors no longer possess impunity if found guilty of negligence and malpractice toward patients and which leads to a trial in a court of law.

In addition, most patients do not have the knowledge to notice whether doctors have properly diagnosed or treated their illnesses. Some have the courage to lodge malpractice allegations, and end up waiting to settle out the court. But many just accept their '€œfate'€ as the will of God.

Consequently, most cases of malpractice have gone unpunished due to '€œthe conspiracy of silence'€ demonstrated by doctors. That almost gives the medical profession impunity. Hence, the ruling is extremely rare and is possibly unprecedented in the medical community in this nation.

I have mixed feeling toward this uproar. I have bad and good experiences of doctors. Recently my dad was admitted to the intensive care unit at our local hospital in Surakarta in the dead of night due to hemorrhagic strokes.

He was as pale as a corpse. He was admitted to an emergency room and the health personnel there without delay provided their best health care treatment to save his life.

Then we have the opposite story, disclosed by one of my colleagues. His father suffered a similar attack. Yet, before being admitted to the emergency room, the health personnel requested him to provide legal guarantee of who would cover his medical expenses. Once this was settled, the patient was treated accordingly.

The verdict of criminally charging doctors could be a good start for advocating for legislative reforms to define criminal conduct and prohibit the criminalization of healthcare decisions made in good faith, including cases involving allegations of medical malpractice.

Yuni Herlina
Depok, West Java