The Lucknow Bench of Allahabad high court has fined three doctors Rs 5000 each for illegible handwriting.  The three doctors are from the hospitals of Unnao, Gonda and Sitapur district.

Hindrance to the smooth functioning of the court

As reported by  Times Of India, in the three criminal cases that came for hearing in Allahabad high court last week but the doctor’s reports of the victim’s injury were unreadable due to poor handwriting. Considering these reports as a hindrance to smooth functioning of the court, High Court fined these doctors for lousy handwriting. Three Doctors are Dr TP Jaiswal of Unnao, Dr PK Goel of Sitapur and Dr Ashish  Saxena of Gonda.

Doctors pleaded against the fine saying they were overburdened. The judges discarded this excuse and encouraged typing of letters instead of writing it.

Justice Ajai Lamba and Justice Sanjay Harkauli of Division bench imposed the fine, as reported by Indian Express. Judges of the high court also said, “The directions of the court and the circular issued by the Director General, Medical and Health, Uttar Pradesh, have been ignored with impunity”.

Earlier circular had warned doctors to write a legal report in the readable format

The circular was already issued by Uttar Pradesh director general (medical & health) in November 2012, in which doctors were warned to write a legal medical report in a readable format.

Library of Oudh Bar Association will receive the penalty from the accused doctors, reported by  The Quint. If they fail in giving the fine, the amount of money will get deducted from their salaries.

Seeing the fine imposed, MGM Medical college in Indore has announced handwriting classes for medical students, as reported by Times Of India. Uttarakhand state has already taken an initiative to deal with unclear handwriting. Chief Justice Rajiv Sharma and judge Manoj Kumar, has announced in September that medical practitioners should use a digital medium to generate prescriptions.

The Logical Indian take

Many doctors write in a hurry, and thus their writing is not readable. This makes difficult for patients to understand the name of medicines which might sometimes lead to chemists giving different medicine of different names and compositions. Sometimes patients are not able to get insurance facilities due to an unclear prescription. The Logical Indian appreciates that the courts and concerned authorities are drawing measures to deal with this problem. However, measures should also be taken to ensure that doctors are not overburdened, leading to situations like this.

Also Read: Doctors Must Write Prescriptions In Capital Letters: Jharkhand Govt Issues Notification