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controversy has arisen among the country’s medical community following a one-year suspension imposed by the medical ethics council of the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) on the director of Gatot Subroto Army Hospital, Maj. Gen. Terawan Agus Putranto. Terawan is a doctor whose “brain wash” method has won plaudits from many patients who have survived stroke.

The council found Terawan guilty of violating two of the association’s code of ethics. Head of the council Prijo Pratomo said Terawan had promoted himself and adopted a therapy that had yet to be clinically tested, which Prijo said constituted a serious breach of professional ethics. Furthermore, Prijo said, Terawan had not heeded any of the Council’s eight summonses since its hearing began in 2015.

Decisions taken by the council in relation to alleged violations of the medical profession’s code of ethics should remain confidential, but in the case of Terawan the verdict was apparently leaked. As we have learned, and this was perhaps the motive behind the leaking of the decision, patients whom Terawan has treated, including senior politicians and the Army chief, have jumped to his defense.

In the eyes of his patients, Terawan has lived up to their expectations, no matter whether the IDI has yet to recognize his modified Digital Subtraction Angiography (DSA) as a form of stroke intervention. Terawan invented and developed the method and defended it before a Hasanuddin University panel of scholars in 2016 for his doctoral degree.

The IDI council, nevertheless, found that Terawan had not conducted enough research into his method. In reference to Government Regulation No. 39/1995 on health research and development, any medical intervention such as the “brain wash” method can only be adopted after thorough research to ensure its efficacy, safety and to anticipate any side effects that might arise.

However, mounting support for Terawan as in the #saveterawan social-media campaign amid widespread criticism of the IDI, mirrors the public’s desperate quest for medical services that actually heal. Lay people tend to turn a blind eye to the means but focus on the goal in their exasperated search for healing, which also explains why many shift from doctors to “alternative” medication considered effective through word-of-mouth, despite a lack of clinical trials.

As we commemorate International Health Day today, the challenges facing the medical profession are becoming more daunting given the steep rise in public demand for better health services, which can be met only if doctors can cure them or spare them from disease.

The punitive action against Terawan should therefore serve as an opportunity to address the protection of patients’ rights, which have in many cases been neglected. Most of the time patients have fought in vain to hold their doctors responsible for alleged malpractice and medical errors simply because law enforcers and judges lack the technical competence to deal with the issue.

Equality in health access will remain elusive if doctors defy their responsibility to serve.