Here’s a warning to start with. This piece is not about the Congress or the BJP or politics. The subject is not strong enough to evoke anger or hurt sentiments or make the civil society choke the mindspace with angry sound bytes. It’s about people dying — dying painfully in places where they should be getting a fresh lease of life: hospitals. Such deaths don’t shame us anymore. So no comments, hateful or reasoned, is expected here.
As the article is being written, 73 people have already died in Kolkata’s posh AMRI hospital. For most of the victims, it was a slow, agonising death due to asphyxiation after a fire broke out in the hospital in the dead of the night. According to media reports, there was no fire equipment in place and the hospital staff were quick to abandon the patients as they struggled for life on their beds.
A patient is rescued at the AMRI Hospital where a major fire broke out, in Kolkata on Friday morning. PTI
Interestingly, AMRI, promoted by the Emami Group, claims to be one of the best-equipped hospitals in the country. If that were not enough, in July the fire brigade has asked AMRI to clear its basement and the hospital had submitted an affidavit that it would do so in two months. The fire started in the basement, at 3:30 this morning.
In October this year, as many as 30 infants had died at Kolkata’s BC Roy Memorial Hospital and Burdwan Medical College in a span of a few days. The new born die in faulty incubators across the country on a regular basis. Patients die fighting for space on hospital beds, die waiting for doctors’ attention. The total deaths in hospitals due to negligence of staff or defective equipment could easily be far bigger than people dying in terror attacks or Naxals violence.
It’s a continuing horror story in free India. But it sparks no outrage, no remorse, and no sense of guilt. The governments and the bureaucracy have always been callous to patients, but what about the general public? Why are they so indifferent to issues that are so close to their lives? Rest assured, the AMRI case will die down in a couple of weeks and the public conscience will sink into deep slumber. Till another horror story crops up somewhere.
“Every time I see incidents like AMRI I’m convinced we really are a 3rd world nation with delusions of greatness,’’ tweeted Omar Abdullah, Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. “AMRI hired Ernst n Young n Kotak Mahindra 2 [to] make Rs 5 billion bid for Sterling Hospitals bt [but] cld nt [could not] install fire alarms. Shame,’’ tweeted Shekhar Kapoor. The criticism is entirely justified. Interestingly, a few weeks ago, a leading news magazine had called AMRI one of the best superspeciality hospitals in the country.
If this could happen to a hospital of AMRI’s repute, imagine what happens at government hospitals, particularly at district, sub-division and block levels. We have seen pictures of patients lying on hospital verandahs with dogs for company. There were news items of dogs sniffing at new borns even in a Chennai hospital and snatching of food meant for patients by the animals. Cases of theft of babies by outsiders have come to notice in Hyderabad and Mumbai too. Forget about functioning fire-fighting equipment and other safety measures.
We are still not talking about the absence of doctors and nursing staff in rural areas. Even in Maharashtra, young doctors are reluctant to serve in distant areas despite the government’s strictures and promise of incentives. Things are far worse in other less developed parts of the country. Medical equipment come later. Without doctors and experts to handle them, these are not of any use.
Healthcare in the country is in a serious mess. The sheer indifference to it by the authorities concerned is appalling. It is our sheer good luck that more people are not dying. Why does not it arouse anger?
Possibly because it is not politics. Possibly lives of people don’t matter to us. We have become too nonchalant to the sufferings of others.
