Medical negligence that can cost a generation
The National Medical Commission’s warning on unsafe injection practices should shake our health establishment out of its dangerous complacency. When the apex regulator of medical education in the country is compelled to remind medical colleges that careless injections can spark outbreaks of HIV, Hepatitis B and C, it is not issuing a routine circular. It is sounding an alarm about a man-made epidemic that can unfold not in slums or shooting galleries, but inside our own hospitals and teaching institutions. The advisory is unambiguous: the reuse of syringes and needles, unsafe vial sharing, recapping of needles, and improper disposal of sharps are not minor lapses. They are serious breaches of patient safety. Each careless jab, each casually reused syringe, can turn a place of healing into a site of lifelong infection. The NMC is merely putting in writing what should have been a basic ethic of medical practice: first, do no harm. This reminder is even necessary, which speaks volumes about systemic failures. Infection prevention and control protocols exist on paper; posters on walls talk of hand hygiene; colour-coded bins stand in corners. Yet outbreaks linked to unsafe injections keep surfacing across the country. The gap between guidelines and ground reality is where viruses travel. The Commission’s insistence on strict adherence to national guidelines, the Biomedical Waste Management Rules, 2016, and NACO’s post-exposure prophylaxis framework must not be treated as another checklist to be filed away. Regular audits, functional infection control committees, mandatory reporting of needle-stick injuries, and documented competency assessments of healthcare workers are not bureaucratic irritants; they are the thin line between safety and disaster. Equally, the push for safety‑engineered, auto‑disable syringes needs political and financial backing. Public institutions cannot be expected to uphold “zero tolerance” for unsafe practices while being forced to cut corners on basic equipment. Either governments invest in safety, or they must accept responsibility for preventable infections transmitted in their own facilities. For regions like Jammu and Kashmir, where public faith in institutions is already fragile, a single outbreak linked to medical negligence can deepen mistrust for years. The NMC advisory gives medical colleges and hospitals a chance to clean up their practices before tragedy exposes their failure. It must be seized, not with token circulars and cosmetic trainings, but with a hard, measurable reset of how injections are given, and how human life is valued.
