|
FRANKLY SPEAKING
India's ailing health system Who cares for children ?Relatives of a tribal kid who died of Japanese encephalitis grieving near her body at a village in Malkangiri.Relatives with the lifeless body of one-monthold Roshan leaving the Baba Raghav Das Medical College Hospital at Gorakhpur Hari Jaisingh Ayear back, a 10-yearold
tribal boy Umesh
Medhi made a frantic
appeal to Prime
Minister Narendra
Modi to visit his
villages in Malkangiri in Odisha
where 73 of his fellow children
had lost their lives in the
outbreak of Japanese
encephalitis. Uttar Pradesh has actually the worst record on child care, with 46 per cent of the children being underdeveloped, including Muslim boys and girls ! My point is simple. Why can't our Ministers, MPs, MLAs, bureaucrats cut down their hefty pay packets and perks to improve the lot of our povertystricken youngsters? Well, the VVIPs hardly care for children?
Adityanath Yogi
What can anyone do if ordinary
people's distress signals do not
touch the hearts of our leaders ?
Mercifully, the Prime Minister at
least expressed his grief at the latest Gorakhpur tragedy during
his Independence Day speech
from the Red Fort. However
passing references can hardly
help solve a deep-rooted rot in
the country's terribly sick medical
system. Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi have-nots, the tribals and the backwards hardly figure in our VVIP-oriented society. Our leaders sell them "dreams" of promises and people are left with no option but look heavenwards with dying children in their arms ! This is the India we all have learnt to live with, whether high-profile persons at the helm happen to be BJP-led NDA Prime Minister Modi or CM Yogi or CM Akhilesh Yadav or CM Mayawati or Sonia Gandhi's UPA power bandwagon of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ! Siddharth Nath Singh Unfortunately, we see more of politics than serious efforts to go deep into the issues of children's mental or physical health and work out concrete plans of action to make the life somewhat easier for the deprived and disprivileged sections of our society. No wonder, we continue to see replay of the same old stories of bunglings, malpractices and horrible working conditions in hospitals from Odisha to Bihar to Chhattisgarh to West Bengal and now in Gorakhpur in UP.
A baby's body is carried out at
Baba Raghav Das Medical College
in Gorakhpur
In Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister
Adityanath Yogi does hold out some promise since he has also
represented Gorakhpur for five
terms in the Lok Sabha. However,
ironically, politics has already
taken charge of the Gorakhpur
tragedy. Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh
Yadav and other opposition
leaders are already at their old
political games. Even CM Yogi's
Health Minister Siddharth Nath
Singh plays his own brand counter-politics on the shortage
of life-saving oxygen cylinders at
the Baba Raghav Das hospital.
The red part of the measuring tape shows severe acute malnutrition
India's medical system is
indeed terribly sick. The country
has one of the poorest health
records in the world. Public expenditure on health is 1.58 per
cent of GDP – far lower than the
global median of 5 per cent. Lalita Devi feeding therapeutic food to Adit Small wonder that every third child in India is malnourished . But, who cares ? What is particularly disquieting is that we do not have proper services or programme for children with mental health issues. In fact, the mental health budget remains just one per cent of the existing highly inadequate total health budget. In U.P., the latest report suggests that the Yogi government has slashed medical education budget by 50 per cent. What a shame ! Uttar Pradesh has actually the worst record on child care, with 46 per cent of the children being underdeveloped, including Muslim boys and girls ! My point is simple. Why can't our Ministers, MPs, MLAs, bureaucrats cut down their hefty pay packets and perks to improve the lot of our povertystricken youngsters ? But the VVIPs hardly care for children ! What is needed urgently is a "total overhaul " of the health system in the country with a view to promoting what Prof Rajni Kothari once put it, new concepts of public management and accountability. Apart from rational restructuring of public health ministeries and departments, the lower levels of administration in hospitals and primary health centres are critical areas for health care. They require special attention since "a million points of contact" are established at low operational According to UNICEF India, over two million children die every year from preventable diseases. The worst situation is faced by rural areas residents living below the poverty line.
Over 30 children died within a span of 48 hours due to lack of oxygen supply
levels every day.
In this context, I wish to quote
S. Banerjee from his study titled
"Some Reflections on
Administrative Reforms"
(Management in government, Vol
1 April June 1969). He says :
Workers unload oxygen cylinders at Baba Raghav Das Medical College
the country's ordinary citizens
and the poor in our high-profile
hospitals and health centres ?
Will the Prime Minister and
State Chief Ministers, including
Adityanath Yogi, learn from
simple thoughts and work for
eliminating the existing hiatus
between the hospital authorities
and the millions of people and
their children ? |