Want, not need:

July 22/2013: These here are terrible times: times when the curse of human flaws, society’s moral turpitude and system degenerations visit upon the most innocent—not just children but also the newborn. Evidences are one too many, and their iterations too stunning that they send a chill down the spine. Whether administrations or bureaucrats take it seriously or not is a debatable point. The common people who have to reconcile with situations in which scores of children die and hundreds take ill after partaking midday meals supplied to them under popular governmental schemes; or, worse, of newborn babies—nine of them in one go—die in a government hospital where they were kept in incubators—have to take the brunt without comprehending the calamity. On top of it all, excuses are galore, coming as they do from doctors or higher authorities, which not only lack credibility but also test people’s patience and even provoke them into harsh responses. No one has bothered to find out why so many infants were kept in incubators--a practice that has come to acquire wide currency in medical circles in recent years just as Caesarians now replace natural births in alarming proportions. Sadly, when relatives and attendants try to draw the attention of the medical fraternity towards a suffering patient, they are dealt with blows and kicks by goons posing as PG students, as is seen at SCB Medical College and Hospital on a regular basis these days.

The last week saw cases of deaths due to what is now reckoned to be chemical contamination of the food fed to children in schools under the Mid-Day Meal Scheme. The first to be heard during the week was of the death of 23 children in a school in Bihar, which was closely followed by an incident in Orissa’s Dhenkanal district where about 40 school kids fell ill after partaking contaminated food, which, it later turned out, had parts of a highly poisonous dead scorpion in it. The absolute irresponsibility and callousness with which those who dispense with the mid-day meal scheme function—be it a school headmaster, teacher, or cook—is a sign of the times. The negligence of a single inpidual plays such huge havoc. Anyone who is bestowed with responsibility is either negligent or callous or corrupt and that has come to be the norm in every field of human activity in our country today. Systems are weakening and irresponsibility is the order of the day.

Those who had conceived the mid-day meal scheme did a great service to the suffering multitudes in this country, whose children are assured of at least a single square meal a day; this, over and above the fact that the scheme is supposed to help raise the levels of education among the poor families because free food turned out to be a ‘bait’ to get such children into classes. But, as the scheme took shape and started rolling, allegations of corruption—of people at different levels taking a cut—began surfacing. Worse, it has now regressed, ironically, to be a dance of death.

Why blame an illiterate cook, when highly educated, elitist sections of the society are faring no better. Take the case of the VSS Medical College incident in Burla, where the hospital’s doctors had the audacity to say it was just a “coincidence” that nine newborn children kept in the hospital’s incubator died in one go. The hospital Superintendent defied all logic when he insisted all these children were seriously ill since birth. So, nine deaths in the incubators at the neonatal intensive care ward in a matter of 24 hours; doctors making an ass of the people by touting justifications of a mean kind; police spreading a protective layer around the hospital authorities who, faced with public wrath, seek to take cover under the promise of a governmental probe is the way things are supposed to happen. This is how, worse can ever become more worse.

The medical profession that has been seen as being among the noblest of professions is supposed to be guided both in letter and spirit by the Hippocratic Oath, which, in its modern wording, runs thus for every doctor: “I solemnly vow… that I will honour the profession of medicine, be just and generous to its members, and help sustain them in their service to society… that I will pursue lifelong learning to better care for the sick; and to prevent illness… that, above all else, I will serve the highest interests of my patients through the practice of my science and my art… promising to persevere its finest traditions, with the reward of a long experience in the joy of healing.” However, the fact needs to be noted that the medical profession in this country—and possibly elsewhere too—underwent a major transformation in recent decades and has rewritten this Code which, loosely read, may sound something like this: “I solemnly vow… that I will honour this profession of medicine, be just and generous to myself and those other members who help me loot and plunder, and help sustain them in their elevated position in society… that I will pursue lifelong learning to better take care of my own income but not pay any attention to prevent illness… that, above all else, I will serve the highest interests of my family, bank balance and clinic through the practice of my science and my art… promising to persevere its finest traditions of making me an inviolable millionaire, with the reward of a long experience in the joy of being a filthy rich and callous doctor who needs to heal him(her)self first. Amen”

In the earlier era, those who came into the profession were bright students who had a fascination for the subject. Merit was the sole criterion for admissions. Now, with the sprouting of self-finance institutions in every nook and corner of the country, and with several unscrupulous private entrepreneurs entering the field with the sole motive of making the maximum money, a scenario has emerged that any Hari, John or Ahmed could become a doctor, provided his family has the ‘lakhs’ to shell out.

All that is said is undone when one considers the writing of a junior Supreme Court lawyer who, in his blog, has exposed the unique misdeed of a recently retired Chief Justice of India, Altamas Kabir. In his short essay posted on his blog at 8:36 am on 18 July 2013, the day Kabir demitted office, lawyer Gopal Sankaranarayanan precisely predicted how the judgment on the Medical Council of India versus private medical colleges’ case would read and which of the 3 judges would differ. The whole episode stank sky high of a ‘setting’ done at the apex court of the land. The court that has set the goal of playing to the gallery by hammering elected representatives out of shape has lost its own shape. Citizens are surely wondering how the numerous honest judges, both past and present, tolerate watching their kin squirming in the mud and filth that has come gushing down in the rivers of time. Like so many dedicated and pro-poor honest politicians getting a bad name because of some criminal elements, a few dirty judges have managed to damn the whole fraternity which has a proven track record of unbiased and untainted careers. When institutions, with the help of judgments passed by judges of this caliber, go on to create doctors, engineers, scientists or other experts who eventually make a nation, we get what we are seeing today all over the face of India.

The issue today is one of lack of discipline at every level. This trait of extreme greed is increasingly turning things topsy-turvy in our lives and deeply harming the society in every which way. We have become a nation of dirt and filth with no concern for anyone else except our inpidual want, not need.