General practitioners cannot be proven as guilty in court when they handle patients suffering from Stevens Johnson syndrom because the treatment taken by the doctors are usually overmatch. This was stated by a functional doctor at the Law and Human Rights Agency in Yogyakarta, dr. Budiman, SH, LLM., in his doctoral promotion at Faculty of Law UGM, on Friday (21/10).
His dissertation titled Civil Responsibility of Doctors of Patients with Stevens Johnson Syndrome in private practices in Yogyakarta’, Budiman said the doctor’s treatment is an enforced one that cannot be blamed if brought to court by the patient or family at some point. “General practitioners ought not to fear to treat if their patients would later suffer from Stevens Johnson syndrom because that is an overmatch,” he said.
He added doctors should not be made responsible for their patients that suffer from Steven Johnson syndrom. Based on his reasearch on 78 general practitioners in Yogyakarta, there were 3 doctors that have patients with Stevens Johnson syndrom. But they have not given medication or drugs yet. “The doctors have the patients with early diagnose of the syndrom where the patient take the medication at their own risk,” he said,
The cause for Stevens Johnson syndrom, according to Budiman, can be due to various factors, but mostly related to immune response to a medication. Other causes can be virus infection, fungi, bacteria, parasite, medicine, food, etc.
He pointed out an example of allergies to syndrom when a doctor gives allopurinol to a person with excessive uric acid case. The patient later experienced a severe allergy and had the Stevens Johnson syndrom. “The doctor is then considered as having done malpractices whereas all medical treatment taken by a doctor whether diagnostic or therapeutic will always have a risk,” he said.
Even so, Budiman said, good communication between the doctor and the patient will help the treatment process and minimise mistakes. Doctors and other paramedics as human beings work in a heavy risk situation. “But the doctors have to meet their professional standard according to good medical services standard,” he said.