Apathy, 360 degrees

Public response is out of sync with private trauma

A few days ago, a friend8217;s domestic help 8212; after taking her 10-year-old son to the doctor 8212; showed her his blood report. The doctor had suspected something seriously wrong with the child since his haemoglobin was down to 3.2 per cent, and had wanted him to be immediately hospitalised and given a blood transfusion before a diagnosis could be conclusively made.

Blissfully ignorant, the parents accompanied the child to a well-known government-run paediatric hospital. The doctor on OPD duty gave the child a cursory check-up and pronounced him fit to go home with a prescription. The parents were overjoyed. Fortunately my friend called up a former doctor of the hospital. She got into action and insisted the child be admitted for extensive tests.

But for this intervention, I wonder what would have been the child8217;s fate. It is bleak, as it is. But at least something could be done towards saving him. While we discussed the doctor8217;s apathy and how medical help had become the prerogative of the moneyed and influential, my mind wandered to another scenario 8212; junior doctors on strike in various cities.

Once again one was ready to hit out at the 8220;noble practitioners8221; who held seriously ill and dying patients to ransom, in their demand for better 8220;treatment8221; from the state. Until a news channel highlighted the conditions in which these doctors live. Their living quarters had not been maintained for years and certainly not cleaned for days. Rats, cockroaches and other vermin had a free run of the rooms and toilets. There was no doubting that these hapless doctors had been slumming it out with patience, pleading with the authorities to give them a better deal. They had to finally strike work to draw attention to their situation.

If we treat our professional healers with so much indifference, what right have we to expect sincere, honest, humanitarian service from them? Why blame them for getting into private practice and selling out to Mammon? This way they are most comfortable, as their affluent patients getting treated in a sterile environment.

It is only when we are personally involved in a case do we even get a glimpse of the callous system that goes by the term, 8220;public health8221;. We are then jolted for a while, before apathy sets in again.