Recently, Maharashtra Health Minister Eknath Shinde made a major announcement concerning healthcare in the state. Shinde declared he would make sure to fill up 10,000 of the 15,000 vacant posts for doctors in Maharashtra.
Shinde's statement comes as a desperate attempt by the state government to salvage the declining health apparatus in the state, by negotiating salaries of over Rs 3 lakh per month for doctors and bargaining for additional incentives for those doctors who would be willing to work in the state's rural and Naxalite-hit areas, such as Beed, Raigad, Yawatmal and Chandrapur.
Yet, doctors cast doubt over the state government's intentions to correct the declining state of the health apparatus in Maharashtra, especially given that barely a few days back, the portfolio of health was handed over to the Minister of Public Works Department Eknath Shinde, as an additional charge, instead of handing it over to a minister as an independent portfolio in itself.
"They are unable to even give us a full-time, dedicated health minister, then how can we, the people of Maharashtra, expect them to take cognisance of the various health issues that stare us in the face?" asks Dr. Amol Annadate, a vociferous health activist who is a paediatrician and neo-natologist practising in Aurangabad district in Maharashtra.
In a video prepared by Annadate, which has now gone viral on WhatsApp, he urges Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray to acknowledge the fact that the doctors feel shameful to work in a state that has the lowest per capita expenditure on public health in comparison with any other state in the country including the 'BIMARU' states of the Hindi belt.
"We spend a mere 0.7 per cent of GDP on health, which is the lowest spending in the entire country," says Annadate, with a sense of resignation. He further adds, "For doctors like us, who work in rural Maharashtra and witness the plight of patients day in and day out, it is extremely pinching to know that in a huge state like ours, the temple chiefs are given ministerial posts, such as the case of the chief of Siddhivinayak temple, but the health portfolio is neglected as an additional charge with a minster who couldn't care less. This is because Shiv Sena knows people vote in name of religion and not key issues like health."
According to a survey carried out by Jan Arogya Abhiyan pertaining to the availability of medicines in government hospitals, it was found that 34.4 per cent hospitals had no provisions for medicines at all; 29.4 per cent of them had medicines, but their supplies were inadequate to match the demand and only 20.7 per cent had a sufficient and steady supply of medicines. For almost a year now, the posts of two health directors have remained vacant and even the river ambulances operating on a stretch of the Narmada river, launched to serve 33 tribal villages, have been anchored after the doctors appointed to serve on them quit.
"The condition is extremely grim. There is a huge network of 1,816 primary health centres, 400 rural hospitals, 76 sub-district hospitals and 26 civil hospitals. But this huge infrastructure is rendered useless because of inefficient management, lack of manpower and shortage of medicines," adds Annadate. He cites the heart-wrenching example of Radhika Sahdev Chavan, a resident of Latur in Marathwada, who committed suicide six months ago in the toilet of a hospital because she didn’t have the money to purchase medicines for her newborn child.
"I wish to ask Uddhav Thackeray, doesn’t this incident move you?" asks the doctor, animatedly, in the video. "Presently 83,000 children are on the verge of death due to severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and in the last three years alone, 80,000 children and 2,859 new mothers have died. Even then, nobody questions the ruling party and Shiv Sena about this. Why?," he asks again, looking the viewer straight in the eye.
Former state health minister Deepak Sawant had to resign because he failed to get re-elected to either of the two houses of the legislature in the interim period of six months after his term ended in July 2018.
