Heal our hospitals first

This creeping collapse of the healthcare system is nothing new. But those with money and power could make it work for them through the social network they had access to. You tap a contact to get your railway bookings done, to get an admission into a school, to get access to a good doctor, to get a lucrative contract and many other things besides. That is why people spend a lot of time building this network.

But, suddenly, even money and power are not good enough and that8217;s precisely why the Kumaramangalam case has sent the Capital8217;s elite into a tizzy. In a systemic collapse, individual solutions work only up to a point, they cannot be a substitute for what a professionalised setup is required to be.

Businessmen and politicians can hire private security guards to protect their property, but when there is a breakdown of law and order, when uglykidnapping threats surface, these hirelings cannot be a substitute for a trained police force. Take the network of private tutors 8212; middle class families spend enormous amounts of money on private tuitions for their children. Yet, no matter how good they are, they cannot replace a good school system.

This is not to say that good doctors 8212; or teachers or policemen 8212; do not exist. Our system has not totally disintegrated only because of some good men and women who plod on with dedication and commitment. But it8217;s only a functioning system that can make use of these men and women.

The sick in this country then need succour, and as quickly as possible. This should have happened in the routine course but unfortunately in India nothing happens 8220;in the routine course8221;. If you meet with a road accident, you would be lucky if you are picked up and taken to a hospital. You would be even luckier if someone attends to you promptly when you reach the hospital. And luckier still if the medicines you are administered are not spurious. No wonder then that Indians have come to believe so implicitly in their stars.

A decrepit system has a direct bearing on the general work ethic and the professionalism that characterise it. Teachers trained in American and British universities, where systems are supposed to work, come back home and promptly become feudal in their approach. Indian doctors man the premier medical institutions of the US and the UK. Indians who seek treatment abroad find themselves being treated, more often than not, by a fellow Indian, whether it is at the Sloan Kettering in New York and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. But these very same professionals, once they are back in India, slip quite easily into the quot;chalta haiquot; of mother country.

There is something poignant about someone as young, successful and full of life as Kumaramangalam, being strapped to life support systems. His fate has hit the political class very hard 8212; it is as if the failure of the system has finally got to them. They are suddenly waking up to the merit of government hospitals and say that while there may be a greater risk of infection in these places, at least they are better equipped for diagnostics because the doctors there are called upon to examine hundreds of patients every day. Unfortunately, over the last five years, the government administered All India Institute of Medical Sciences AIIMS has lost out to swankier institutions like Apollo Hospital.

But there can be no two opinions. Medical competence, good nursing care, cleanliness, the latest technology and equipment have to get precedence over big rooms, plush furnishings, TV sets and telephone lines and all the other paraphernalia that goes to make a five star hotel, sorry hospital.

Dr C.P. Thakur has promised an inquiry into the alleged failure of Apollo Hospital to diagnose Kumaramangalam8217;s illness. Given the triad of politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats and the nexus that exists between them, there is a general scepticism about such investigations. Khurana disclosed in Parliament that he had sold land to Apollo Hospital at a concessional price when he was chief minister on the condition that 30 per cent of the hospital beds there would be earmarked for the poor. But no such thing has happened.

Today mere inquiries are not good enough. Apollo is symptomatic of a deeper malaise, requiring the restructuring of the entire health care system to make it more accountable. No other task could be more urgent because a citizen is most vulnerable when he or she is sick.

There is something poignant about someone as young and full of life as Kumaramangalam

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