There was a recent news airing on TV which caught my attention. A woman admitted to hospital for child delivery died after accusing the hospital staff of threatening of killing her. Even her baby died. The TV channel showed a video where the woman was shouting for help and within few hours both she and the child were dead. It was shocking and a question would come to the mind of all viewers whether her accusations were true.
Until a few months ago, I would have found it difficult to believe, but not any more. I witnessed a horrible incident in one of the best known hospitals where, when an old person removed cannula attached to his hand due to pain and irritation, the hospital staff threatened him with "tying his hands and legs" if he did it again. When patient was admitted to Emergency ward, attendant is not allowed to stay with the patient for a long duration and hence hospital staff sent the attendant away. After an hour when the attendant comes back, he sees the patient lying with splash of blood lying all around, all clothes, bedsheets, etc had blood, perhaps half a cup blood was wasted and blood was constantly coming out of cannula on his hand. Even the medicine which was supposed to be given to the patient with water, was lying on he floor. When he looked around to see what nurses and doctors were doing, he saw that all were busy on their "smart phones", paying no attention to his patient. When he asked a junior doctor to help, he sent a male nurse who instead of feeling sorry, got angry at the patient and have him warning against doing again and forced the attendant to sign a "consent" to tie up the patient if he does it again! So much in the name of wellness and healthcare.
In newspapers, I have seen news where doctors of government hospital ask for monetary bribe from patient for doing surgery. And of course government hospital staff ask for bribe at every steps and also mistreat patients if they do not comply.
On the other hand, we also see news of doctors being beaten up by families of patients, and while whole society's sympathy is with doctors on this matter, I am beginning to get a sense of why many times such violence take place in the first place. We never see nurses and other staff being beaten up, because perhaps they put whole blame on doctors.
It is sad to realise that despite so much progress in all fields, healthcare in India is still substandard and coping up under huge crowd of patients as well as marred by mismanagement by the hospital staff. While PM Modi's vision to make India a developed country by 2047 is being realised at a fast pace, his own policy of providing free mediclaim to the poor and old people (Ayushman Yojna) has caused severe crowding of even the best of hospitals, bringing down their quality of healthcare.
There are no easy solutions to this problem, but government should take note of all such incidents being reported by patients and bring such hospitals to the task, so that these do not repeat. Patients and their family are already suffering due to illness, and if hospital staff carry out atrocities over them, it is double tragedy.
Hope government works hard to bring quality healthcare to the people of our country.
- Rahul
