Currently, there is a strike by 10,000 physicians at public hospitals in a state of India in an attempt to get better salaries and work opportunities similar to those in other federal hospitals in India. The government has suspended 40 doctors, and 390 others have been arrested for failing to perform their duties.
Over the years there have been physician strikes elsewhere in the world and in the United States for various reasons including the high cost of malpractice insurance. A 2004 article in the American Journal of Bioethics by Autumn Fiester argues the ethics against walkouts by physicians, in this case the issue has been the increasing malpractice insurance cost rates not keeping pace with physician reimbursements.
My question to the visitors to my blog is whether physicians have a right to strike and if so for what reasons and if they do, is such individual physician termination of services, without any replacement provided ethical? ..Maurice.
