Going to hospital "TO DIE"

This refers to the editorial published in The Hindu on 17th January 2009 titled REDUCING RISKS OF SURGERY. It brings to our attention to wanton negligence while preparing an operation theater before a surgery. It elaborates that if stringent procedures were adhered to for pre-surgery arrangements, debility rate and mortality rate (in more simple terms, hospital deaths) can beremarkably reduced. I personally know some incidences where patients got killed in hospital by utter negligence on the part of the docs. Very recently, an expecting mother who got admitted into a Salem hospital eventually succumbed because of ‘suspected infections’ she had contracted during her stay in surgical theater. Her bereaving husband is valiantly fighting for justice and compensation and knowing our judiciary works, I could only pity the man.

Of all the professions, it is the medical profession that needs to conform to the highest standards of ‘professional ethics’ as any lapse in it means either permanent debility or mortality to the person who, in all innocence, hands him over to the mercy of the doc. But the standard of ethics in the profession in India is appalling and nobody would have a second opinion on this. Why have the standards have fallen so abysmally low? Doctors who have direct bearing on the future of the person who is handed over to them seldom care for him with a genuine heart and for them, he is only a revenue outlet and they try to manipulate his person to make the most in terms of revenue. Can we get rid of this malaise? What could be the possible remedy? One plausible way out of this tunnel appears to be nationalization of medical education in the country. No private party should be allowed to run a medical institution of whatsoever kind.

At present, saving few government run under-equipped medical colleges, most of the medical colleges are under private interests and the rich and super rich alone have access to the medical studies in our country. Having spent around half a crore and five to eight years, a fresh medico comes of out of his college – ready to hunt down as many preys as possible in the shortest possible time to earn back what he had to give to the owner of his college. As he is in his blood-thirsty prowl, any innocent victim caught in his cage (read ‘hospital’) is torn into pieces and milked to no end. Getting lashed down by all the myopic medical jargons deftly deployed by the doc, the relatives of the unfortunate (read ‘patients’) run from pillar to the post to manage the astronomical sum the doc quoted very imaginatively and by the time the ‘unfortunate’ comes out of the hospital either alive or dead, his family would have spent its last paisa and lost all its future prospects.

A couple of years back, the Union Health Minister Dr.Anbumani proposed a plan of compulsory rural service by fresh medicos coming out of government medical colleges. This was even implemented, though partly. But medics opposed it so vehemently that its future lays uncertain. Dr.Anbumani is very correct in saying that the medical graduates who have undergone expensive education at the cost of public exchequer has moral obligation towards the public – more so towards to the underprivileged in our society. But the medicos are not inclined to give back to the society what it had given them. This is not a surprise considering our plummeting moral standards. Why should we single out medicos alone? We single out medicos alone possibly because of the reason that government does not spend so much on any other category of students.

Coming back to the issue of nationalization of medical education in the entire country, it will certainly be opposed by those barons in the industry who run ‘the best’ of hospitals for ‘the best of the milieu’. There should not be a second thought in bringing the entire medical industry under the direct purview of the state and so far as medical education is concerned, no private medical college should be allowed in operate in the land. MERIT should be the only gateway into these colleges though ‘social justice’ can still be done using the existing reservation formula. When medical education is provided absolutely free of cost to the deserving and the meritorious, they can be made to serve in the rural and the remote areas at least in the initial phase of their career.

Healthcare and education are two very issues a country like ours cannot afford to fiddle with. It is not the capitalistic states like USA or Canada who have accomplished medical care to all the sections of the society but it is the socialistic countries like Cuba and Venezuela who have taken medical care to the most downtrodden and underprivileged. In fact, doctor-patient ratio in Cuba is unarguably the best in the world and this enviable state is attributed to the nationalization of medical education there. There have been some positive inroads in recent times to bring a sense of social obligation from medics in India. Having brought them under the nose of Consumer Act is definitely one among them. But it is too little where too much needs to be done on war footing. Bringing elements of ‘accountability’ into their profession would make a world of good –to the docs and their clients as well. All said, I know this is my wishful thinking. India Inc. will not allow any of these happen within its jurisdiction.

“Manmohanomics” is obsessed with making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Manmohans and Chidambarams are too busy in churning out more Ramalingam Rajus and the ailing poor man wailing desperately for his life in the filthiest state-run hospital corridors does not feature in their blue print of INDIA SHINING. Long live India!!

Media War Cry

No country in this world would like to get in a mess like what India found itself in on the 26th of November 2008. Around 200 people should lose their lives to the meticulous and ruthless massacre superbly planned and minutely executed by a numerically negligible band of terrorists or "jehadists". Condemnations from all over the civilized world keep us reassured of the world's vision of safe future world.

But there is another side of the event that should not elude our eyes and minds. Has the Indian media acted responsibly in the wake of these attacks? Does it suffer from "reality TV" syndrome? Does the Indian media thrive on such gory events to further its interests? Is the Indian media interested only in catering to front benchers? Will it ever stop offering 'views' in the name of 'news'? There are some of the pertinent questions emerging from the unfortunate event 26/11.

I could even smell a hardcore trade rivalry among the Indian English Visual Media. Times Now, CNN IBN and NDTV 24X7 were maniacally pitted against each other in grabbing the better side of the cake. They were desperate to add more masala into the drama unfolding before them and before the eyes of media-glued middle class Indians. All the TV brands worth their names made the bivouacs before the Taj and Trident where the tension was mounting up by every minute. And, if there were any dull moments, they were salaciously compensated by the "war rhetorics" of the correspondents of these channels. Rajdeep Sardesai, probably fancying himself as the sole voice of India Beaten, kept on shooting all types acid questions on the governments - State as well as Central and their agencies. NDTV was not lagging behind, of course. High profile Barqa Dutt was there countering, in every sense, Mr.Sardesai.

The drama of 'rhetorics' scripted by these media men soon reached the verge of repulsion and disgust. The silliest aspects of the day around Taj and Trident were put to question and the media tried in desperation to portray that everything is wrong with governments, agencies and the people of India. Any Tom, Dick and Harry was interviewed and this chap goes on firing the PM and the CM. The worst thing is that anybody coming out of these 'spots' (Taj and Trident) was a 15 minutes celebrity and he/she would inform India about the 'hi-tech' terrorists and would go on warning India about any such future attacks. The mothers, fathers, uncles, aunties, maids and remote acquaintances of the aggrieved parties were not spared by this ruthless cameras and mikes. These aggrieved parties also, completely pushing their personal grief to the backseat, succumbed to 15 minutes fame - lashing at the governments and its agencies.

Rajdeep Sardesai was at his rhetorical best or worst? His bosom fried, an upright officer, Ashok Kamte lost his life while braving the terrorists and the whole nation mourns for the loss of such a gem. But the language and tenor manipulated by Sardesai is not definitely 'first-rate' - the mark of a senior correspondent from a responsible media house. He tagged the event "WAR ON INDIA" - thus propelling hyper duper emotional response from the 'all-believing Indian middle class'. NTDV 24x7 followed suit soon. Barqa Dutt championed herself the hero of the cause of the dead and kept on battering Political India with the help of a 'carefully selected panel'. (She still keeps on lashing at everybody who comes her way for 26/11). The Devil's Advocate Karan Thapar joined the band and gruelled Pranab Mukherjee. But the wily and street smart Bengali was very articulate and diplomatic in his responses leaving Thapar no chance to extract anything that could later be branded as 'sensational'.

If there were any responsible responses to the event of 26/11 in media, that is from some sections of print media. I would like to draw everybody's attention to the article by V R Krishna Iyer in The Hindu, some days after the event. He whipped up the Sardesais and Barqa Dutts for the hyper rhetorics while covering the event. And he is one of the first brave hearts to call a spade a spade. He questioned why the so-called media champions were prejudiced against the attack in railway station? How come the victims at the CST terminus were less important than the ones at the Taj and Trident? Maybe because the media elites found themselves more identified with the mortal elites at Taj and Trident. Ashok Kamte was Sardesai's friend that is the good enough reason why there was disproportionate time allotment for the martyrdom of Kamte. This is defnitely not to deride or devalue the cause of Mr.Kamte but to focus how the conceptual engineering of Indian Electronic Media Inc. works. The innocent people slain at the CST station is far less important than the ones wasted at Taj and Trident. This is the clear sign from these media barons and the gossip-mongering Indian Middle Class (or Indian bourgeois?) unequivocally endorsed it by ensuing the media-line endlessly in their office chats and discussions during their morning strolls.

Completely repelled by the media coverage of the event, I was looking for an effective remedy to get rid of the 'media hangover'. Moving out of my compound, walking into the street, I had to respond to the shouting of a mobile cobbler yelling for his service provision - "Seruppu repair! Seruppu repair!!" completely unaware of 26/11, Sardesais and Dutts.

Looking at this cobbler, I cannot but think that India might survive any number of attacks either by these idiotic terrorists or by Media India Inc. as its core and root keeps walking and repairing on its way any problem in marching ahead.