Dr Oscar Rebello
I deliberately waited to gather my thoughts and wait for the brouhaha to play out in the now infamous Cestao de Casualty! I had hordes of my doctor friends descend upon me, admonishing me for not having torn Vishwajit to shreds for having destroyed the dignity of a doctor.
Many slyly told me: “Bang Vishwajit”. As if Vishwajit is the Elon Musk of the Republican party. Plausible deniability! And when I asked them to co-author the column, they all balked. “Aamche hospital assa mure, amchi clinic assa mure.”
Vishwajit Rane. I will say this on the record: By far, in living memory, he has been the best health minister of Goa. The facilities he has single-handedly established at GMC are truly top notch. The services in super specialty are simply world class. And he has conclusively hit the tidy profits of the private health sector in a big way. I have said this to him personally at social functions, and I will say it publicly now.
But much as he has been a boon to the health sector, he has been a savage curse to Goa’s environment, her identity and her very future. Single-handedly, he has facilitated the vanishing of hills and forests, rivers and farmland. This coming from the son of Goa’s premier CM (despite his faults) is an affront of herculean proportions.
The episode that exploded nationally was not about a minister berating a doctor or a government official being humiliated etc. That was classic Vishwajit. Hubris. The problem there was that Vishwajit foolishly permitted the episode to be videographed and disseminated, thinking it could be an entry for a best Oscar documentary. If this episode was not beamed on all those smart phones, the outrage would have been zero.
Complete kudos to my medical fraternity for rising in unison against an act so brazen, so degrading, and so arrogant (again only because it was caught on film) by making their anger palpable and heartfelt. Then the wider Goan and national outpouring of support followed, because every individual in this country has been the victim of the high-handedness of VIPs. That struck a chord. And Vishwajit’s high-handed behaviour fitted in well. The groveling apology demanded would never come of course.
All it served was to encourage Pramod Sawant to strut around like Antonio Guterres—the UN Secretary General, and Dr Madhu Ghodkirekar, modern day Jaichand, to plunge his dagger in.
After the storm calms, these are the demands that must be met for the optimal functioning of GMC:
There must be a finite work load on GMC staff. 36-hour duties on the trot, that many residents do, is counterproductive to the positive health of any patient.
Appointments for consultation must go strictly by some App-based service. And no one can break the queue.
Emergencies must go to casualty, and vitamin injections for compromised journalists must be organised at home.
Two portals must be established ASAP. One is a patient grievance, where patients must have the right to complain about shoddy service, and explanations thereof.
Place two senior respected citizens and two retired doctors on this oversight committee. And if lacunae are found, temperate warnings or action must be forthcoming.
Two, a doctor/health worker grievance portal (both these portals must be physically active in GMC itself) must be established.
Any vendetta action: harassment, bullying, intimidation by any authority in GMC or government, must be swiftly addressed.
Since these matters are usually technical, a retired judge could be in order here. There can be zero tolerance for harassment of any of the aggrieved doctors who took to the streets. We are still not in an authoritarian regime, officially at least.
And finally, videography must be permitted in hospitals. Casualty, OT, ICU and patients’ bathrooms must be exempt. A patient’s relatives must have the full right to film rogue and abusive behaviour by doctors and nurses, and then use it as evidence in those appellate bodies. And doctors and nurses must have the full right to film an abusive patient’s relatives and attendants (the worst behaved are the gold-chain dangling, politically connected flunkies). And use that film as evidence.
In sum, there must be a detente between doctors in GMC and the authorities. But paramount is that doctors must have the peace of mind to go about their business.
Postscript: Whatever your politics on Israel and Gaza, the only three professions standing tall amidst the rubble, risking everything, are the doctors, healthcare givers and journalists. Even if you hammer our morale, we know we are noble. We know we slog our butts off and we are the best. You can never take that away from us.
(The writer is a general physician)
