I wrote a long post and a few snippets on the Junior doctors’ strike already. The scene of a three-year-old dead, for want of timely medical attention, will haunt not only its parents but you, me and the striking doctors as well, who fell terribly guilty over the developments.
This is a state, where posting a meme of the political leaders on the social networks could land one in jail, but lorryloads of angry people can land up and ransack hospitals, beat up doctors at work, at their sweet whims. The age or the condition of the patients while admission is immaterial. The attackers in large groups always outnumber the handful of disinterested policemen posted in the hospitals.
A junior doctor was seriously injured among a few others, with a cracked skull, in a similar attack four days ago at the NRS hospital, following the death of an 87-year-old patient, which led to a lightning strike by the doctor’s colleagues.
As the problem of intimidation, abuses and assaults are not uncommon in the other hospitals, it was but natural for the juniors from other government hospitals to join the strike, which has now snowballed to other states as well, as a mark of solidarity and support from the medical fraternity.
CM Mamata dropped by at the SSKM hospital on her way to her workplace at Nabanna and was greeted with slogans, which infuriated the CM. She gave an ultimatum of 4 hours to withdraw the strike or else threatened to clear the striking interns from their government allotted hostels. She also decided that ‘outsiders’ were instigating the students to strike, and from that point went on to make mistakes after mistakes, culminating in her ill-advised rigid stand and a pathetic press conference in the late evening.
Though it has been a peaceful protest seeking the safety of their persons and lives, the interns keeping all the political parties at bay, Mamata did not lose time to blame the BJP and outsiders as the one who were fomenting trouble at the hospitals.
She needn’t have had to visit SSKM at all, but had to meet the NRS students, where the assault had taken place. In a cheap gimmick, characteristic of lowly politics, the fans and the lights were disconnected and taken away from the protest tent of the students, disregarding the sweltering heat and the mood of the interns. Besides, a group of goons seen in the vicinity of the striking students with sticks and bamboos further aggravated the situation.
If my heart goes out and out to the unsafe doctors, it equally is anguished at the plight of thousands of terminally sick, who could die, or health conditions terribly worsen for no fault of theirs. They were only faulty, being born poor and not able to afford a private hospital or a nursing home. I am sure the doctors will relent, and their sacred oath of saving lives will prevail over their present traumatic situation and will return to their workplaces.
Poor people will not forgive politicians for their arrogance, which they do with the strength of their ballots, but for now, it’s time to take a kinder stand and attend to the lives in agony and pain.
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix