Red Cross isn’t for doctors, hospitals

CHENNAI: When one sees a Red Cross doctors, hospitals, ambulances and pharmacies spring to the mind. But left to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), it may not be so for long, at least in India.

The ICRC has for long been trying to stop medical establishments and practitioners from “misusing” its registered ‘Red Cross’ emblem, which is protected under the Geneva Convention of 1949 to which India is a signatory. 

The ICRC has asked the Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS) to get the protected logo removed from “unauthorized” places in India within two years. “The ICRC has been fighting the misuse of the logo in many countries. Some of the developed countries (like the US and the UK) have fallen in line, while the misuse is still rampant in India. We have been unofficially given a deadline of two years,” an IRCS official told DNA. 

While almost all the state branches of IRCS have given complaints to the medical bodies and the state governments, the Kerala branch of the Youth Red Cross on April 14 served a 90-day notice on the state government.

“We need to protect the exclusivity of the 'Red Cross' which is vital for reaching medical aid in war zones,” says IRCS secretary general S P Agarwal. But what doctors and hospitals use if the Red Cross is withdrawn?

“There are already internationally recognised substitutes. For doctors there is a staff with two wings and two snakes entwined. For ambulances there is a staff with one snake against blue background. For hospitals there is 'H' in white against blue background and for pharmacists there is the green cross,” says Agarwal.

Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have initiated the process of emblem replacement. The appointment of two dissemination officers in Mumbai in the last three years is seen as the ICRC’s renewed efforts at emblem protection in Maharashtra. “We are distributing stickers of approved logos to hospitals, doctors and pharmacists. We are in touch with local cable operators to spread the message. Pharmacists are slowly adopting the 'Green Cross' logo,” says K Krishnadas, Secretary IRCS Maharashtra.

The Indian Medical Association (IMA), the representative body of doctors in India, is not resisting the change. “When the Red Cross insists, we have to obey,” says IMA secretary general SN Misra. While corporate hospitals already have their own emblems, doctors feel popularising the alternative emblem would be a task. 

“Our hospital does not use the ‘Red Cross’emblem, but for the medical profession in general, it will take some time to popularise the alternative logo,” says PVA Mohandas, Director, MIOT Hospital, Chennai.

IMA Tamil Nadu president Dr Zameer Pasha plans to take the alternative emblem to the villages as part of the Union government's rural health programme Aao Gaon Chalein (Let's go the villages). His Maharashtra counterpart Dr Ashok Adhao adds: “We will make all our 20,000 members adhere to the norms in one year and reach out to the other two-thirds of doctors who are not IMA members later. We will also encourage ambulances to switch over to the allotted emblem.”

“An Indian law in 1960 made the use of 'Red Cross' by others a punishable offence, but it failed to define the procedure of filing a complaint against the violation,” says Dr NG Narayana, Secretary, IRCS Karnataka. The IRCS is pushing for a clearer law with stringent punishment. According to the 1940 Geneva Convention, besides IRCS, only the Indian Armed Medical Force is entitled to use the emblem. 

With inputs from Don Sebastian in Thiruvananthapuram and Bhargavi Kerur in Bangalore