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23 Is Honesty the best policy?
Mercury and the Woodman: While he was cutting a tree on the river bank, a woodman lost his axe when it accidentally fell into a river. He was wondering how he could ever get back his axe when Mercury appeared and offered to help. Mercury dived into the river and came up with a golden axe. The woodman said, "Oh God! Mine is not a Golden axe.” Mercury dived again and brought up a silver axe. The woodman shook his head and said, "Sir, mine is an iron axe, not a silver one.” On his third dive, Mercury recovered the woodman's axe. The woodman was overjoyed to get his axe back and thanked Mercury profusely. Mercury was so pleased with the honesty of the woodman that he presented him with the other two axes.
Mr Ram, an industrialist, was indicted in a scam. He was widely expected to be arrested soon. In order to avoid being in the jail, he flew in a top cardiologist to examine him for "severe heart pain". The doctor 'diagnosed' a serious heart ailment and put him in the VIP suite of a 5-star hospital for a month's rest.
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Unfortunately, in real life, dishonesty seems to pay rather well - at least in the short term! A Mercury of today may well say, "I can give the golden axe if you will let me keep the silver one.” And a desperate woodman of today may well reply, "I'll let you have the golden axe. Just hand over the silver one."
The ploys of the doctor-patient nexus to fool others are too well known. Just look at
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the number of false medical certificates, false receipts for medical reimbursements, spurious laboratory reports, false admissions into a hospital to escape staying in a jail. A medical certificate has become one of the most discredited documents of this country.
Dr Mira Shiva, a well-known health activist of India, has told me about some unfortunate women of Assam who were put in lunatic asylums by false medical certificates. My colleagues in forensic medicine recount instances of falsification of postmortem reports. The list is endless.
Can the health professional recover his/her credibility ever again? How? How can we make honesty more attractive than dishonesty? Can health care alone be an island of purity in the cesspool of Indian public life?
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