By Nisser Dias
Step-motherly treatment to health care in Goa
Decades
back the basic needs of a human being was ‘roti, kapda aur makhan’, today with
the evolution of time and modernity two more basic needs have been added to
that list. And that is education and health care. Many a countries in the world
including India has made these two requirements of modern day life freely
available to its citizens, sadly in India it largely remains as desire of the
people. To some extent the Centre through the state governments have reached
out to students to attract them to attend school to eradicate illiteracy,
healthcare has suffered badly because of the apathy of the political class of
people who seem to be more interested in letting private players in the health
sector to flourish.
It
will require reams and reams of papers if we try to compile medical negligence
in government hospitals and neglect of government hospitals all over the
country. So at the moment let me concentrate or rather focus on the neglect of
government hospitals in our own state. A state that is said to be forward
looking with a different outlook compared to the rest of the country, advanced
state in contrast to other states. A world famous tourist destination and yet successive
governments have not been able to establish a robust government healthcare
system where its people can get quality medical treatment for free.
Of
course in 2002 during the first tenure of Manohar Parrikar as chief minister a
survey was conducted by a reputed national new magazine and Goa did stand among
the first five in healthcare. But the parameters then were based on the number
of primary health centres, sub centres and government hospitals. So also it was
based on the number of people visiting these hospitals. But the mystery still
remains whether the journalists conducted survey by actually visiting these
centres (health) and observing its functioning or whether the information sought
by them was provided by the government officials in their hotel rooms?
Nonetheless
Goa was projected in the top five in health-care in the country but we all know
the ground realities are quite different.
A visit at any health centre or sub-centre or hospital including government
Goa Medical College (GMC) will indicate that the authorities are not bothered
about the hygiene and upkeep of the centres and hospitals.
Recently
the false ceiling of the Out Going Patient (OPD) at GMC had collapsed due to
leakage of rainwater. Fire had also erupted in the complex, there are many more
examples to show that successive Health minister lack the will and the zeal to
bring about revolutionary change in the public health care.
Hospicio
is yet another story of neglect and disregard. It has become a sort of a
tradition that upon taking oath the newly ordained minister visits this
hospital based in the commercial city of Margao and is a nodal hospital for
south Goa. But successive governments have conveniently ignored to cater to its
requirements. The word hygiene had taken leave of absence in this hospital
years ago. The staff including the doctors posted at this hospital must be using
the word sanitisation only while advising the patients because I do not think
the hospital was ever sanitized. Of course I do not blame the doctors and the
staff because it is the duty of the government to provide the equipment and
chemicals to do it. It is our bad omen that the successive governments have
even failed to provide adequate beds and bedsheets due which patients have to
share a bed and that too without a bed cover and bed sheet. Family members or
relatives have to be content sleeping on the floor.
The
morgue at Hospicio is yet another issue. Over the decades the capacity of the
morgue has not been increased and there have times when even two corpses were
accommodated in once space. Infact some years back reacting to my news item on
the mortuary I was invited to visit the morgue. The contention of the in-charge
was that it was maintained and the dead persons were given the due respect. To
his bad luck a dead body was kept on the floor outside the cold storage and he
had to apologize to me. Subsequently chief medical officer posted at Hospicio
decided to build another morgue at Leprosy hospital inspite of resistance from
the morgue incharge. Couple of years later it was closed down because of
inconvenience. Lakhs and lakhs of rupees down the drain.
The
leprosy hospital in Margao at the Monte hill is another case neglect. Yes, we
have the infrastructure in place in terms of buildings, plenty of space around
it and qualified staff but to my utter dismay the government does not have the
resolve and determination to maintain it and run it smoothly like private
hospitals.
Similar
treatment is also being dished out to hospitals in the pipeline. Digambar Kamat
government has poured in crores of rupees in the new district hospital project on
the outskirts of Margao. Today all the works on the promising project has come
to a standstill as the current government is not making the funds available for
its completion. Initially Health minister Laxmikant Parsekar made tall promises
of completing the project so that it would be a big asset to the state and a
facility to the people of south Goa. One and half year down the line the
project stands abutting the national highway as a ghostly, ugly structure.
The
government showed great interest completing the imposing South Goa Collectorate
even after cribbing that its maintenance would be a financial burden on the government
treasury year after year. But similar enthusiasm is lacking in this case. The
question is why. If the government does have the finance due various factors
like stopping of mining, servicing of various populist schemes then why does
the chief minister keeps on promising financial assistance at every public
function he attends. The idea should have been to complete public amenities
already underway and then take up new ones. But it has become our government’s
agenda to give step-motherly treatment to most of the public amenities
including health care.
--
Nisser
