My first brush with a government healthcare system in the state — apart from my birth in such a hospital in Berhampore — was probably in 1987 when i visited a dentist in Kanksa primary health centre (PHC). The PHC at Kanksa — a block in Burdwan district — caters to thousands of villagers in and around Panagarh, a military base, from Trilokchandrapur in the north to Randiha in the south. Health services seemed to be alien to these villages — some are dominated by tribals, mainly Santhals — in the late ’80s, more than 10 years after the Left came to power in Bengal.
Like sports records, are promises made only to be broken? When the Left came to power in the historic 1977 elections before i was born, didn’t they send a message of hope for the underprivileged? Healthcare is a crucial issue not only for people at large but also for any state that wants to progress. How many people took the Coromandel Express for an appointment with doctors at CMC Vellore or Apollo Hospitals Chennai in the ’80s? We may not have the exact figures but certainly the number was far less than it’s today. Why should there be a beeline for the South when we have state-run “super-speciality” hospital like the SSKM?
Whoever has ever stepped to the super-speciality hospital, as the Left had remodeled and rechristened it, would know nothing is special in patients forced to live together with cats and rats, to bribe a tout for a bed (forget free beds for the downtrodden though there are provisions), to share bed (if you manage to get one) with a diarrhea patient, to shell out the extra bucks for hygienic drinking water or even to release a body after your nearest one’s death. We have taken this for granted as our misfortune in this state. Those who can afford go to private hospitals mushroomed off the EM Bypass in the last 10 years. But a government for the poor hardly cared for them.
Cut to Panaji, Goa, January 2010. One of my friends sprained her ankle on the last day of our trek. Within half an hour after reaching our base in Panaji, we could take her to Bambolim-based Goa Medical College. Screeching to a halt in front of the emergency, i saw a person was ready with a wheel chair and stretcher — a scenario still unimaginable in state-run hospitals in Bengal. She was wheeled into the orthopaedic department where an X-Ray was done on her ankle followed by plasters etc — and all it took just over 30 minutes to complete in the oldest medical college in Asia. Even medicines were available in the hospital pharmacy. For me, it was dream. Here, we run helter-skelter for a drug prescribed by our government doctors.
Cut to SSKM, Kolkata, May 24, 2011. A surprise visit by Mamata Banerjee kept doctors on alert and patients reassured of a failing healthcare system on revamp mode. Earlier we witnessed preparations at a government hospital with disinfectants only the day before a minister’s visit. With surprise visits being the new chief minister’s modus operandi to “change” systems, can we feel the pungent smell of bleaching powder instead of surgical stench at our hospitals? And, that applies to all government hospitals, not SSKM alone that can’t cater to millions in Bengal’s remote areas.
