Political Diary
New Delhi, 25 October 2016
Aam Aadmi In ICU
POLITY RUNS OUT OF
BALM
By Poonam I Kaushish
Life in India
is cheap, real cheap. With people falling like nine pins due to gross
negligence, deadly diseases topped by Government apathy. Thanks to a Sarkar which doesn’t give a rat’s ass
about the aam aadmi! Wherein, a death
is dismissed as, Achcha woh mar gaya, to kya?
How else should one react to 24 patients who were charred to
death and an entire floor burnt down in a fire mishap at the Institute of Medical
Sciences and SUM Hospitals in Bhubaneswar Monday last. Or it took over 100
deaths of dengue and 380 cases of chikengunya for the Delhi Government to
sit-up and take note that the Capital was in the throes of a deadly disease.
And now news of bird flu being back and infecting humans.
Our netas reaction?
While Odisha Chief Minister Patnaik went through the boring dance of sorrow routine
offering hollow platitudes, Delhi’s
Health Minister stated, “There is no cause for panic. The situation is totally
under control.” Really? You could have fooled me?
Importantly, given our leaders penchant for short-cuts and
quick-fix solutions, what else can one expect, but these ghisa-pitta reactions? Spotlighting, once again their cavalier and
churlish attitude and approach to a crisis. This begs a question: Patnaik has
been running the Government for 16 years, why has he not provided basic
facilities in his State?
Notwithstanding the SUM hospital denying any lapses, the
fact is that its last fire safety audit was done in 2014, thereby putting a
question mark on how it was allowed to operate without the statutory fire
safety certificate? More. According to the State’s Medical Education Director
only three corporate hospitals out of over 500 in the State have fire safety
certificates.
Coming as it does barely five years after the Kolkata AMRI Hospital
blaze in 2011 which claimed 89 lives, the moot point again is: Who allowed SUM
to function without the mandatory fire clearances for three years? Who will bear
the cross for the State Administration? That it epitomizes the death of civic
and health reforms plagued by a heartless attitude, lethargy, corruption and
bereft of cure and consolation is old hat.
The buck doesn’t stop there. The situation is no different
pan-India with several hospitals lacking the infrastructure to manage a
breakout of a blaze. 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.
True, Indian hospitals and health officials are diseased and
have always been synonymous with inefficiency and insensitivity. Add to this
the heartless beast called babudom, a
self-serving lot, devoid of sympathy and kindness which turns servile only for
money and power.
Rats nibbling away the ears of a new born and stray dogs
moving about in gynecological 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.
Remember, the heart-rending story of Dana Majhi, who walked 10 km carrying his wife's dead body last month
simply because his cries for an ambulance were brazenly dismissed by officials who
instead like vultures they reveled in his plight. Shockingly, in many places,
even dead cattle get the dignity of being transported for burial.
Highlighting that nothing has changed in Mera Bharat Mahan. Of a system which
continues to deny people the right to live and die in dignity. Day after
day, month by month anguished wails pierce India’s comatose dark skies.
Standing testimony that the aam aadmi
translates into a sterile statistic!
Think, the way our system functions, it is a no brainer that
are powers-that-be connive to give each other clean chits and put the blame for
on a minion’s shoulder. Through the eyes of the Indian ‘system’, the fault is
always with the ‘other’, and the officials, being paragons of virtue that they
are, always answer the call of duty, without favour, greed or any expectation.
Undoubtedly, India
is in the throes of an all-round crisis: Social, environmental and moral
degradation, Look at our 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 Global Burden of Diseases 2015, heart
attacks, lung obstruction and strokes are the three top killers, accounting for
over one-third of deaths. Coupled with diabetes and chronic kidney diseases,
they total five non-communicable diseases which are among the top ten causes of
death.
Communicable diseases like bronchitis and pneumonia,
diarrhea and TB (which afflicts the poor and malnourished) they account for 60%
of the 10.3 million deaths in India
every year. Diabetes as a cause of death has grown at a chilling 35% between
2005 and 2015, chronic kidney disease by 21% and heart attacks by 17% even as
communicable disease deaths have dropped by 20 to 30%
A
National Sample Survey Organisation study of village infrastructure in 2003
found that 54 per cent of villages were more than five km away from the nearest
Primary Health Centre and 27 per cent were more than 10 km away. Only 10 per
cent had a dispensary and only 20 per cent had a private clinic or a doctor.
So,
even as we delude ourselves by arguing 'Mera
Bharat Badal Raha Hai'. The bird flu alarm, chikengunya alongside
the SUM fire demonstrates are inability to manage a crisis, dictated by a ki farak painda hai attitude. Thereby, underscoring
that the real filth is more administrative and political.
Sadly, we continue to be stuck in a hell-age where the aam aadmi dies unsung of garibi, starvation and malnourishment
while our society's conscience has been numbed by apathy and selfishness. See
how a pedestrian was crushed by a speeding car driven by a drunken youth with
none stopping to take him to hospital in Delhi.
Undeniably, this apathy and insensitivity has become
symptomatic of our society at large. In a country of 1.3 billion, ironically,
each person in distress almost always finds himself alone, proving that our
collective soul is in gradual demise and that the societal bonds have snapped
irreparably.
Today, we face an extremely serious situation. We are at a
stage where another crisis threatens. What next? Time our polity has respect
for human life and improves service delivery in public services with people at
the centre of social development. Time to safeguard public health
infrastructure, constitute a public health policy, establish fresh priorities, elucidate
damage control measures and keep calm.
With India’s
public health is in the ICU, our rulers and Government need to get its act
together. To foresee is to govern. No longer will cut throat projections and
assertions of “All is well’ suffice. They need to follow a ‘womb to tomb’
policy of keeping citizens healthy. Governance cannot be infected! Will they
apply balm? ---- INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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