How has India as a Nation Failed its Doctors, or Healthcare Workers?

–Kakali Das |

The doctors of our country have been working ceaselessly in order to effectively battle Covid-19 for over a year now. The junior doctors have been inhumanely overworked, sleep-deprived. On the contrary, what we have been witnessing on the ground, and the news of the gruesome attacks that have been coming through is not a sentiment of gratitude. The number of news stories across the country, of attacks, violence and assaults against the members of the medical community seems to have become a new normal these days. Sigh! Seemingly, the questioning, blaming of doctors for the deaths have led to more assaults on the doctors, especially the junior ones, who are in fact on the frontline, facing families and putting their lives at risk. At a time, when India should be treating her doctors with respect, care for the sacrifices that they are making on the ground, why are we disrespecting them, causing them problems of assault, underpayment, insult, and many more? Why is India mistreating her doctors?

Uttarakhand, as a state pays its medical interns a stipend which is the lowest in the country i.e., an amount of Rs 7500 per month, meaning Rs 250 per day, and which is often paid irregularly. “We have been requesting and earlier our seniors did too to increase the stipend according to the central government institutions,” Dr. Ashtha Gupta, Veer Chandra Singh Garhwali Government Institute of Medical Science &Research said. Here, in Assam, Dr. Tinku Borah, a senior resident under NHM serving in Silchar Medical College says that they haven’t received their salaries for over two months now. It’s evident how in our country we have all our priorities surprisingly set wrong in some ways; we have countless human lives and human talent we don’t appreciate back. Ironically, for us humans, human life isn’t costly, for we know that when one dies we can merely donate Rs. 50,000 to the widow or the family, and get it over with. How irrational, ineffective, pathetic souls we have all been degraded to!

There are 19 states which have enacted legislation for protection of medical doctors against the assaults, violence hurled upon them, but with no implementation of it till now. Doctors being thrashed in Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, and in fact across the entire country seem to have become a trend now, with people bashing the healthcare workers with no sense of hesitation or fear in the body language or their mind. When are the states allocating resources to monitor the hospitals to provide them with the protection? We are a country with funds and resources enough for the healthcare system to function properly, and had the government’s priority been the healthcare workers and healthcare system, and not building of statues, or funding for new houses, the country and its people would have been in a better shape now.

Moreover, certain businessmen, or so-called influencers aggravating the problems and atrocities on the doctors can’t be disregarded. A self-proclaimed Ayurvedic fame, Baba Ramdev, a man who claims to have made Yoga popular worldwide (?), and has innumerous laymen listening to him, blindly buying and consuming anything he says, who holds so much sway, when derogatory remarks against our healthcare system are being passed by him, while promoting conspiracy theories, and coming in the way of effectively containing the disaster, why isn’t then the disaster management act being invoked? Why hasn’t he been punished yet? Besides, we must all be aware that a lot of Ayurvedic graduates are frontline workers in this country today. In many hospitals, in small and large cities, they are the ones who are running wards, ICUs, and also are the ones who are dying. The government must ensure safety for the genuine Ayurvedic graduates who have been tirelessly and selflessly working, to save lives in this epidemic under this system.

The Prime Minister, a few weeks ago made a statement thanking the medical fraternity for its exemplary services in the fight against Covid-19; he not only thanked the MBBS students, but the Asha, Anganwadi workers, including the Scientists for toiling hardin this crisis. But it hardly seems like the government is walking the talk; his act of gratitude comes across as an act of gimmick with dry, barren words, and no life in it. If our honourable PM believes that his garland-ish words merely would stop violence on the doctors, save their lives, pay their bills, or in fact, provide them with momentary relief, then it’s hightime he realised that he couldn’t pull off these stunts with conviction, and fool the public anymore. The common masshave developed immunity to his “emotional, fatherly acts” already. The time when the doctors, across the country, have been asking for better facilities, free treatment for themselves and their families, it isn’t fair for the government to merely comment on it as ‘a long standing problem which should have been handled’, and not materialise and bring it into action on the ground.

Besides, the junior doctors haven’t gotten up from hibernation and gone on to strike. They have been demanding for their safety for long, which has been on record, but with no response from the government. In fact, many doctors couldn’t find beds for their own family members during the second surge in Delhi. They aren’t demanding proper and free treatment for themselves and their family members in isolation or vacuum, but because they have suffered, experienced and witnessed these situations taking place. Not only have the doctors been working in immensely dangerous conditions, but also in hospitals that have run out of oxygen, shortage of beds, ventilators, medications etc., while simultaneously facing the wrath and frustration of the patients’ acquaintances on the ground.

There needs to be a larger and vocal demand to all of our governments, state and centre, to be more aware of what our doctors have been experiencing, to offer more support, especially during this pandemic. A larger focus, as we haverealised failing on the healthcare sector in general, whether its public or private, to ensure that the governments invest more in empowering the healthcare sector and in strengthening it is a pressing priority. We should be asking for these demands not only in times of war, but also in times of peace.