In an Instagram live with orthopedist Dr Manan Vora, Varun Dhawan recently spoke about the incidents of violence and physical assault that have been happening against doctors across the country. During the session, Varun appealed to his fans to take this issue seriously. He also spoke about the steps that hospitals can take to safeguard doctors and why grief counselling is the need of the hour.

As the session began, Varun shared that while he usually does a lot of fun sessions, the recent attacks on doctors was something that he thought that he really wanted to speak about. “It’s an extremely serious issue and we need to create awareness on this topic. The second wave has not been easy on anyone, I’ve had at least seven family members who got Coronavirus during this phase, and it’s very stressful for the family. So, I understand when it happens but it is unfair on doctors, who are treating you, who are there to cure you day and night, to go through this,” he said.

Agreeing with Varun, Dr Vora added, “It has reached a point where doctors are wondering if their decade-long career is really worth the trouble, and the current medical students are wondering if they have made the wrong decision... it’s not what we want budding doctors to be thinking, so we need to address the issue and tell people that it is not normal to hit doctors.”

Varun shared that he had read about the incidents where doctors have been attacked in Delhi, Assam and across the country. “Emotions run very high when you lose a family member, but what do you think hospitals can do to safeguard doctors?” Varun asked.

“As far as the hospitals are concerned, installing CCTV cameras in the emergency as well as ICUs is important. The other is having ample amount of security personnel. How much can one or two security guards do when you have an entire mob attacking you? While doctors know about consent and documentation, I would like to talk about doctor-patient communication... if the situation is going south, just gradually tell the family (any bad news) so that they have some time to process it. It can make a really big impact. While we need to look and introspect, we need to understand that nothing justifies violence,” the doctor said.

Giving a reference from his family, Varun shared that he lost his maasi recently, who was being treated at a hospital in Chicago. “With COVID, people have post-recovery side-effects and they suddenly die. It happened with a relative of mine, my maasi, who was at a hospital in Chicago. She was there for a month, she was on the ventilator and then she was off the ventilator. Suddenly after 40 days, she passed away. So, there’s no way to prepare a family for this but you can’t take your grief out on a doctor because ultimately everyone is dealing with it together,” said Varun, adding, “We never talk about grief counselling in our country because at the moment, the medical fraternity is overworked. Is there something that can help the families to deal with it better?”

“We have enough psychologists and counsellors, who are a part of the process. Along with this, the medical students and young doctors need to be taught grief counselling, about passing the information to a relative and the way it needs to be done,” the doctor added.

When the doctor asked Varun if he felt that doctors are overreacting, the actor shared, “I don’t think doctors are overreacting, it is unfortunate that we need to talk about this and create awareness about something like this. Doctors infected patients se jaake mil rahe hain, apni family se nahi mil rahe hain, bina break liye kaam kar rahe hain, PPE kit mein and we are attacking them if we lose a loved one! People need to understand that it is not their fault, this disease is still new, people are understanding it. But you can’t harass or attack doctors, you just can’t do that.”