Working in the health care field can be deadly. According to the Centers for Disease Control, health care workers are at great risk for homicide, just a notch below convenience store clerks and taxi drivers. Physicians are the most likely victims compared to other health professionals like nurses technicians and dentists.

These statistics ring true when I think of Dr. Wakil Khan (Khyber Medical College, class of 19690, a wonderful human being and a superb psychiatrist who was gunned down in a state mental health clinic last April in Toledo, Ohio. His story brings home the devastating effects of random violence on the victim’s family and the inability of the society to cope with the consequences.

The public outrage on the shooting and the outpouring of sympathy for the victim and his family lasted but a short time. After the last of the flowers had wilted and the sympathy cards read, the family was left not only to cope with day to day agony of caring for the victim but also to face the reality of financial ruin. It has not been easy.

Since the shooting the 55-year old psychiatrist remains in coma in a nursing home and requires frequent hospitalizations for the treatment of complications. It costs about ten to twelve thousand dollars a month to care for someone like Dr. Wakil Khan in a skilled-care nursing facility. With no outside help how many families can sustain this kind of drain on a limited income? There is always a lot of month left at the end of the money.

As usually happens his health insurance has run out. The amount of $50,000 paid by the state’s victim compensation program has disappeared in the ever-expanding sinkhole of medical bills. One would think that the workers’ compensation would have come to their rescue. Wrong.

The State of Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation had approved compensation but Northcoast Behavioral Health Care of Cleveland, the outfit that had employed Dr. Khan on behalf of the state, appealed. They contended that Dr. Khan was a contract worker and therefore not eligible for state help. A hearing officer at the Industrial Commission of Ohio sided with Northcoast.

The transcript of the hearing is a fine example of legal hair splitting and gobbledygook. The hearing officer in a narrow interpretation of the law stepped aside Dr. Khan’s previous employment with the state, his willingness to work as a contract physician to provide much needed psychiatric care. They also brushed aside the fact that the patient walked in the clinic building, had some one let him in the secure area where doctors’ offices are located and pumped six shots into Dr. Khan.

The matter was disposed off at the hearing-officer level, as is the custom, and was not brought before the three-member Industrial Commission. The Commission spokesman refused to discuss the case but provided a transcript of the hearing, which is part of the public record.

There are not many choices one has in these circumstances. One would be for the family to pursue a costly and protracted legal battle in the courts. The other would be to have the legislatures change the inherently unfair rules. To date the elected officials have paid but a lip service in this case. It takes commitment and relentless pursuit to have things changed in Columbus, the state capital.

There have been unexpected acts of kindness from some people though. Dr. Khan, generous to a fault in his quiet and unassuming way, supported many individuals and charities in Toledo and also his native village near Kohat in Pakistan. A local physician decided to put in extra work to help pay for some of those causes. Recently he sent a check for $10,000 to the family for this purpose.

The broader issue of gun violence and the toll it takes on the society remains an ongoing national debate. Dr. Wakil Khan has become just a number in the reams of cold and impersonal statistics. When every thing is said and done these statistics are nothing but real people with their tears wiped away.

The writer is an op-ed page columnist for the daily Blade of Toledo, Ohio and a professor of surgery at the Medical College of Ohio.