Fixing a vigil

The one day I spent there gave me an impression of what it must be on other days. It also gave me an idea of the power of the media to which institutions succumb without even being asked to, either out of greed for publicity or out of fear of criticism.

The reporters and camerapersons gathered in the verandah, waiting for managing director Mahesh Sharma to turn up. And when he did, it did not take much coaxing for him to acquiesce to their demand that they be let inside the ward where the patient was kept.

And once the door to the ward was opened, there was no stopping anyone. They rushed in like mad men and women nearly falling over each other, climbing over beds. The doctors, three of them, guarded the door to the room where Kumar rested, letting the camerapersons shoot through a window. But the cameramen never seemed to get enough. Driven by some strange insatiable urge, they rushed out as soon as one of the doors opened and almost fell over Kumar.

Finally the doors were shut and the doctors left, followed faithfully by the flashing cameras. They then gave the media the good news. The man was to be shifted for a colour doppler test to check if anything was wrong with his heart. Another chance to shoot Kumar.

Members of the press lined up outside the door waiting for the stretcher carrying Kumar. The moments ticked away as I stood wondering whether I was to report on this media circus or on the patient. The stretcher was at the door and there he was, with his hairy chest and closed eyes, constantly moaning, his forehead wrinkled up as if in pain. As cameramen hounded him up to the lift, their lenses almost scraping Kumar’s face, journalists remarked to each other that he was definitely a good actor though his film had flopped.

And as the media crowded over Kumar’s stretcher yet again, the director of the hospital told me that journalists were acting like immature children who could not have enough of something. “It is scary. The man may die of fright,” he gasped. “But if we do not let them in, the media would criticise us and that would harm the reputation of the hospital.”

Reporters from two news channels admitted to me that the hospital had no business permitting the media beyond the front doors. They also admitted that they were helpless once they were permitted inside. “We have no go but to get all the visuals and sound bites the others get,” they said.

Another noted that while the hospital authorities probably loved the publicity they were getting in the process, mediapersons tracking Kumar risked contracting an infection.

And so while both sides worry only about themselves, the effect on patients in the hospital is obviously nobody’s concern, least of all the media’s.