THIS STORY WAS narrated by Metropolitan Emeritus Philipose Mar Chrysostom of the Mar Thoma Church. Three young men once turned up at the bishop’s house seeking financial help for their friend who had renal failure. They asked for a sum, a hefty one in those days. The bishop told them that he could give them part of the amount; they would have to find the rest from elsewhere. Dejected, one of them bowled this yorker of a question at him: “You are letting our friend die. So, what is the difference between you and a thief who stabs someone for money?” Shaken, the bishop gave them the money. The incident moved him deeply, prompting him to share the experience widely.
As editor, I often come across appeals seeking financial help for medical care. Sometimes it is a family’s sole breadwinner, and sometimes a little darling who has just begun life. The background stories are often heartbreaking. We run quite a few of these appeals in the Malayala Manorama newspaper. The large-hearted contribute, and lives are quite often snatched from the brink. So, it comes down to that—to putting a price tag on a life. In a recent podcast, Dr Devi Shetty said that in the next decade India might “disassociate healthcare from affluence”. A fine choice of words, I must say.
This issue is THE WEEK’s annual special on best hospitals in the country. The fine suite of stories is bolstered by THE WEEK-Nielsen survey which ranks hospitals countrywide. The thrust this year is about the governments’ responsibility in making health care affordable. While individual states have projects covering specific needs of certain segments of the population, India lacks a policy that offers umbrella cover. Families dip into their savings to ensure quality medical care. And, care ends when their mug scrapes the bottom of the bucket. This has to change. The right to decent life is fundamental, and health care is an integral part of that right.
As this letter goes to print, the district medical officer in Idukki, Kerala, has suspended a staffer at the district hospital for her high-handedness. The staffer had refused to issue tokens to those in queue, and was quite rude when confronted. In AIIMS Patna, Rambalak was in queue at the out-patient registration desk. By the time the farmhand had got the paperwork right, his feverish daughter had died in her mother’s arms. Only the hard-pressed go to government hospitals these days. And, there, these things happen to the most helpless of our brethren.
The Mahatma called for antyodaya. It is high time we had antyodaya in health care.
