Do you believe people should be held accountable for their actions?  I will venture to guess your answer is yes.  Now, do you believe that doctors should be held liable for the patient care they give?  Again, a yes I'm sure.  But ponder this, what if a doctor does not act in the best interest of their patients, does not act in a responsible way, does not take the concerns a patient voices seriously, resulting in misdiagnosis, injury or worse death. 

Many try to put the fault of doctors uncaring attitudes upon health insurance companies saying that they involve themselves too much in the doctor/patient relationship, but how can a professional actually try to pawn what they do in their office or in the hospital be ruled by what a health insurance companies policies say.  Doctors take a hippocratic oath to give the best possible care to each and every patient, that oath should not be ever forgotten,  nor is it should the excuse for any practitioner to not feel they are culpable for malpractice.

Malpractice.  It is occurs on a regular basis, but some patients feel so dejected or have undergone so much at the hands of their care giver they never file a medical grievance, they've become so devastated and/or tormented by their treatment that many lose heart.  As a result there are more people who are in turn treated with the same uncaring approach.

What will it take to make doctors realize it is not an insurance companies duty to give the best possible medical care to people, but rather it is the responsibility of the doctors themselves.  They hide behind policies instead of living up to what they pledged.  Doctors try to discredit the patients, Would we tolerate this type of treatment from the people we encounter in our daily lives?  Why then should we concede?  Negligence on the part of practitioners is often dismissed by a peer review panel, where is the justice to those who have been victimized?
 

If you feel that the something needs to be done to ensure that doctors are held accountable for their actions please take the time to educate yourself on just how to seek justice, you wouldn't want to be the victim of a malpractice, if you were what would or could you do?  Become informed on your rights as a patient. And what the Managed Care Reform Bill, Patient's Bill of Rights and Tort Reform Act are that will be going to the Congressional Floor in September 1999.  There is right now an online petition we all need to read & sign if we are going to receive the treatment we deserve. 

One of our own Net Sisters has her own personal experience to share on this issue.  Your heart will ache for a long time after you read her agonizing undergoing, that now nine years later she is still persuing justice for and instead of letting it go, she finds strength to fight for not only her own encounter with a doctor who disregarded her but she is promoting support for the effort of making our medical professionals amendable for their actions.

Please read our own Sister Gabburp's story, read the information she has graciously supplied us with & take the time to read & sign the petition to ensure that we are given the care we seek & the respect we deserve when anticipate doctors have professed to give us as their patients, to have them take our concerns earnestly not that of someone who is ignorant.  All of us have to make doctors accountable for their mistakes and hold malpractice as a criminal act rather than just a horrible mistake.
 
 

Thank you for your support, our voices will be heard & we will be treated with respect, compassion & empathy, but only if we speak up & say we will not accept maltreatment.