Political
Diary
New Delhi, 10 December 2011
If Fire In Govt Hospital…..
WILL MANTRIS TOO BE ARRESTED?
By Poonam I
Kaushish
"What's the
use of coming now? He is already dead. All are dead. The Administration is
hopeless, useless," angrily shouted Pradeep Sarkar. Sounds familiar,
doesn’t it? Day after day, month by month anguished wails pierce India’s
comatose dark skies. As our netagan
continue to glibly
parrot trivia and get their knickers in knots. Standing testimony that the aam aadmi translates into a sterile statistic!
True, the dastardly fire at Kolkata’s multi-specialty private
AMRI hospital where 90 patients choked to death while sleeping in a fire caused
by inflammable material stored in the basement was heart-wrenching. But more
horrifying was the Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee’s reaction. Not only did she
cancel the hospital’s license for gross negligence but also arrested six
directors for culpable homicide and negligence. Notwithstanding, patients
continue in the hospital’s unaffected block sans doctors and nurses to attend
them.
Importantly, given our leaders penchant for short-cuts and
quick-fix solutions, what else can one expect, but this ghisa-pitta action? Spotlighting once again our polity’s cavalier
and churlish attitude and approach to a crisis.
Not for them the need to elucidate damage control measures, put the
disaster in proper perspective and keep calm.
Raising
a moot point? Does Mamata not know that the State Government too has a stake in
the hospital’s ownership? As Chief Minister should she too be arrested? If the
fire brigade came late, were ill-equipped, without masks with only rickety manual lifts why
hasn’t the Fire Chief been hauled up? Who will bear the cross for the State
Administration granting license without overseeing whether the approach road to
the hospital was wide and traffic-free in an emergency? Does it condone and
justify the State Government’s delayed action, bad planning and
mismanagement?
The buck doesn’t stop there. Scandalously, three big Government
hospitals in Union Capital Delhi, AIIMS, Lok Nayak and Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospitals
are among 12 others functioning without fire safety certificates, endangering
the lives of thousands. Less said the better of swanky private hospitals. God
forbid, in an emergency a patient would die thanks to congested roads. In
Andhra’s Capital Hyderabad over 400 hospitals are fire accidents waiting to
happen. Less said the better of small cities and districts.
Rats nibbling away the ears of a new born and stray dogs
moving about in gynaecological wards no longer make news, for they are common
occurrences in Government hospitals, not necessarily in rural areas. Worse,
none is willing to learn the ABC of health and crisis management or finding
lasting solutions.
Importantly,
the Kolkata tragedy underscores India’s
appalling state of our healthcare systems which makes us particularly
vulnerable to a disease. The Government spends less than one per cent of its
GDP on public health care. According to the WHO, our national average is only
45 doctors and 8.9 beds for every 100,000 patients, with the levels far lower
in poorest States. Add to this a highest annual death toll due to tuberculosis,
malaria, dengue and cholera.
More. There is only one doctor for 28 villages with over 20,000
people. When he is away on call all is left to God. According to UNICEF nearly
136,000 maternal deaths out of 30 million pregnancies occur annually, most of
which are easily preventable. On top of this 9 out of 10 pregnant women aged
between 15 and 49 years suffer from mal-nutrition and anemia which causes 20%
of infant mortality.
Worse, a study done by the Global Antibiotic Resistance
Partnership-India Working Group and the Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics
and Policy found the infections rate of Indian hospitals wards and intensive
care units is five times more than in the rest of the world. Of which some
diseases are not only difficult but also impossible to treat leading to death.
Clearly, underscoring the real filth is more administrative
and political. Who will bear responsibility? Alas, gone are the days when
Shastri resigned in 1956 following a train accident. Today, we are captive of double standards and
skullduggeries wherein demands for resignations are dismissed by are netas as political redundancies.
Look at Mamata's track record: As erstwhile Union Railway
Minister from 2009-11 over 250 passengers lost their lives in train accidents. But
no word of resignation. She conveniently dismissed all as “the drivers human
error”. Ditto, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar response to farmers’
suicide in his home State Maharashtra. He attributes these to vagaries of
nature, not faulty planning and giving fertile land to builders for ugly
sky-scrapers.
Of course, RJD’s Laloo gave resignations an all together new
meaning. Asked whether he would resign taking moral responsibility for a rail accident
in 2005, his response was telling: “People have elected us to take
responsibility as Ministers, not to run away from it.” Ex-Prime Minister VP
Singh elevated resignation to a high political art. Effectively, converting the
moral act in to an instrument for furthering personal political goals, gaining
public sympathy as a selfless leader.
Resignation from office, as we know it now, is no more a suo motu high act, it is a part of the
game of political expediency. Where do we go from here? It all depends on our netagan. Perhaps it is time for the
Government to realize that economic reform without reforms in the social
sectors can become a bane in themselves. In an open economy, as Kolkata’s
disaster shows, the entire system can crumble if the social sectors are weak
and fragile
Significantly, our polity needs to have respect for human
life. Two, put in place efficient administrative and political machinery. Three,
provide hygienic sanitary conditions (only half of the country’s garbage is
cleared). Four, introduce sanitary landfills and dumping grounds along-with
getting rid of 14 lakh manual scavengers to clear human and animal excreta, no matter a legislation
banning this practice. Five, proficient health
care system.
It is now imperative for India to rethink its strategies and
approaches to safeguard public health infrastructure, constitute a public
health policy, establish fresh priorities, improve service delivery in public
hospitals, rail and road management and establish close links between research,
policy and service; with people at the centre of social development.
The Government can no longer bury its head in the sand.
Conferences of Ministers, Secretaries and directives from the Centre to the
States will not do. The time is for gone for the Government to play the pied
piper coupled with its accompanying ki
pharak painda hai attitude. Will the future generation be weighed down by our
moribund and politricking leaders albatross round its neck? And aver: Achcha who mar gaya kya?---- INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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