Rouf Rasool
Kashmir is really a gold mine, and the rush is on. Everybody is busy milking the society and its systems to the best possible advantage and that too without any hassles. Although like elsewhere laws are here as well, but unlike anywhere else, nobody bothers to heed these laws as there is no mechanism for their implementation. All one has to do is to open a ‘shop’, and start minting money by preying upon the gullible. Here the ‘shop’ does not mean just a grocery or some something like that, but the ‘shop’ is the term used to describe the business in general. So as the situation is, we have all kinds of shops here – right from the ones that are run as political establishments to those who actually sell some merchandize; and everybody is doing just too well.
Of late medical profession has turned into a virtual gold mine for all those who are associated with it. So huge is the money in this field that not only the trained doctors but even the semiliterate quacks too are amassing wealth by either posing as doctors or simply offering some other supplementary services like clinical laboratories, diagnostic centres, X-ray clinics and the like. No wonder that a huge industry has sprung up in the Valley to prey upon the already distressed lot. Now see the irony, these ‘medical shops’ (read private clinics and diagnostic centres or nursing homes and hospitals) have spread their tentacles everywhere so much so that it has become practically impossible for the people here to conceive of a healthy life without paying some ransom to the Kashmir’s medical mafia.
Although the Directorate of Health Services here is well aware of the machinations of this mafia, yet they prefer not to do much about it for the sheer reason that the wealth amassed by these private practitioners has brought them huge clout and influence. And here as the hindsight has it, government and its agencies have always played into the hands of the rich and the powerful. No wonder that people of Kashmir, particularly the chunk already troubled and distressed by disease, have been left to the mercy of the greedy diagnostic centres, clinical labs and so-called medical institutes and hospitals. At places doctors themselves have put together some big medical centres where besides the doctors’ consultation so many other facilities like lab and diagnostic tests are offered under the same roof. In most cases, these so-called facilities are add-ons for ensuring more and more easy income for the owners.
Such so-called medical facilities have come up in erstwhile cinemas, hotels, and elsewhere. Although on paper many of these facilities are run by various Charities or Trusts, and as such they feign as being charity hospitals, but fact of the matter is that these are basically very lucrative commercial ventures of some powerful business-people. There is nothing for the ailing patients in these hospitals except for those who are willing to turn a blind eye to the cheating by the institutes in the name of medical care and help. While these facilities remain grossly mismanaged as far as the patient-care and comfort is concerned, what makes the matters worse is that the staff in most of such facilities including diagnostic labs is ill-mannered and lacks even in basic human niceties like talking pleasantly with the visiting patients and their attendants. Even though patients have to pay through their proverbial noses some 50-100 percent more than the actual market price of things and facilities and services in these private institutions, yet the arrogant administration and staff behaves as if they are manning a charity.
At a time when Health Minister is reportedly poking his nose “unnecessarily” into the affairs of the Government Medical College and Associated Hospitals here, and it is time for him to wake up and initiate action against those white-collared robbers who are sucking at the bleeding wounds of distressed and diseased Kashmir in private hospitals, nursing homes, diagnostic labs and similar other facilities. And by the way, SKIMS Soura and its Medical College (JVC) at Bemina are crying for some governmental attention, which they are not getting for reasons best known to the government. Why not turn some focus of “corrective measures” towards these premier healthcare institutions as well?
Courtesy: Kashmir Images