United we stand……..

In the winters of 2014, one of my friends’ shared that her housemaid was asked for money in the maternity wing of government hospital in the state capital. This was the time when the state government had declared Health Sewa Guarantee ensuring free treatment, drugs, diagnostics and diet to all who are admitted in the public health facilities. At national level, the state was being lauded for this initiative. By declaring pro-poor policies; the 1 year old government was trying to deepen  its roots to ensure victory in the consecutive fourth term in the future.

Having advantage of access to the higher officials in the department, I shared this incidence with them who were very disappointed and raged by it. In recent years, situation in the public health institutions have seen a stark change . Hospitals are much cleaner, with availability all the basic and essential resources. Suddenly hospitals were revived to its original functions.  They were swarming with people …..patients. The wards were full, medicines stocked at the counter, laboratory busy in taking samples and writing investigation reports. With fund flexibility in a national programme, human resource crisis was also addressed to some extent with contractual appointments and outsourcing of support services. Of course doctors were as scarce as ever…..

Stung by the act, the department ordered a probe to pin down the culprits and take an exemplary action for others not to repeat the same in future. Our organisation being outside the system, were asked to be part of the probe team and were expected to provide an unbiased angle to the whole situation. We were quiet satisfied that the administrators have taken cognizance to teach lesson to the involved . Its for later to decide who actually learnt a lesson in the process…….

One of my colleague was deputed to be part of the probe team. As per the government order he went to the hospital on the scheduled date and time. The other members who were from within the system didn’t turn up for the probe. Doubled with the sense of responsibility, my colleague decided to have a very casual discussion with the staff posted in the labour room. When asked , who were on duty during the reported episode, each one of them had a memory black-out…..He continued in a generalist manner without pinpointing anybody and started going through  the chronological sequence of events since the women was admitted till she was discharged after the childbirth. He also tried to tally the casesheet with the services provided to her. To his surprise, the case sheet was very sketchy with no protocols followed, which he discussed with the staff and left the hospital. No probe report was prepared as this session did not meet its purpose in want of absence of other team members.

Higher officials issued order to shift the staff who was on duty during the reported incidence out of the labour room  with immediate effect for an year…… thus the case  came to a logical ending…. Or was it going to start in a more illogical way…….

After a week my colleague got a notice from a police station…..there had been a police complaint against him to harass a schedule caste woman, who happens to be posted in a government hospital as a staff nurse. This clearly was a case of atrocity against the ‘downtrodden’. He was accused of using racial words against her. Thankfully in such cases FIR is not written without having a dialogue with both the parties. Christmas and New Year were spent to put all the efforts jointly to avoid formal FIR. Strong sources were identified to gain access to Politicians, IG Police, couple of senior bureaucrats …even the Chief Secretary. The top officials were sure that the case doesn’t hold water, but it was not getting anywhere near to closing. We all were worried, but my colleague had lost his sleep with the mere thought of being an accused, he had yet to climb up many steps in his career.  

Finally we decided to seek the most indigenous and trusted path…..face-to-face discussion in an unofficial manner through a mediator. The mediator turned out to be the Steward of the hospital (brain behind the police complaint) who belonged to the ‘upper’ caste. Our background work revealed few of his soft spots which we hit in the most machiavellian way. First meeting was the bull’s eye where the ‘victim’ withdrew the complaint by formally informing the police in writing. Later the complainant leaked the fact that she was asked to write a complaint to teach my colleague a lesson not to get involved in such things in future. After all it could be a direct blow to the economy of the hospital staff  !!

After almost a month long ordeal I learnt that united we stand only for a common  interest…..and we can arm-twist the benefit of our diversities as well to gain it.  

On 26^th January  I felt mocked by the song ……Hindi hain hum watan hai Hindosatan hamara……