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Doctors have been called the God of the earth, but is this God really able to play this role? Medical profession is also one of the professions which have seen maximum development after liberalisation. Perhaps there was apprehension of the effect of liberalization that since the beginning, there has been a demand to hand over education and health to the state, but it was continuously ignored by the governments. Now Rajasthan has become the first state, which has agreed to make health a citizen’s right in a way, but in the state first private and then government doctors and other health workers came out against it.
According to the constitution, health is a subject of the concurrent list. By the way, in Article 21, the citizen has also got the right to health. It can be said that after 75 years of independence, a state government took care of this right and it also made a law in this regard in September, 2022. Since there are elections in the state after a few months, the Congress government led by Ashok Gehlot is seeing a political advantage in this. Doctors opposing this law allege that after its implementation, doctors will not be able to treat patients independently.
God forbid, one has to be seriously ill to see how much money has become dominant in the health care of the country. If you reach the government hospital, then it will depend on your luck that you will be brought up by a good doctor. As far as private hospitals are concerned, as soon as you go there, first of all your pockets are searched. In most of the cases, intentionally so many tests will be done, such operations will be done, which will not be needed in that particular disease.
In Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital, cases have come to the fore of taking expensive items and pressurizing the patient to go to the doctor’s suggested test center. The current governments of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar claim that the stream of development is flowing in them, but if you look at the best houses built in the last decade in the towns and districts of these states, you will find most of the houses either by contractors Or the doctors. The assistant general manager of a nationalized bank located in Connaught Place, Delhi, said that before Corona, medical shops, test labs and hospitals had taken a huge amount of loan from them for five or seven years, but they repaid it during Corona itself. .
According to a report that came after the pandemic was brought under control, privatization of the medical system got a boost after liberalisation. In this era, after treatment of serious diseases, many families have come below the poverty line. A few years ago, the Haryana government admitted an attack victim to a five-star hospital in Delhi. Even after his death, the hospital did not declare him dead in order to raise the bill. The family of that victim had also come below the poverty line.
Perhaps these were the reasons why the Gehlot government has taken the initiative to give the right to health in Rajasthan. Under this right, now hospitals will have to treat the poor under government schemes and in case of emergency, they will have to refer to the appropriate hospital. In case of an accident, the victim has to be treated immediately. All these provisions may be in the public interest, but there is a possibility of putting a brake on the earning of the doctors. That is why they are against this law.
It is also interesting that the Congress, which became the vehicle of liberalisation, is now moving towards a welfare state. The western land from where liberalization has come, there is more government expenditure and budget on health. It is the highest in Italy. In countries like Norway, Finland, Denmark, health is completely a state subject. Despite privatization in Britain and America, the government health system is good. Brazil provides almost free treatment to its citizens as well as foreign citizens.
Like the initiative of the Gehlot government, the Stalin government of Tamil Nadu is also working in this direction. It has been six months since the Right to Health Bill was passed in Rajasthan. Changes have also been made as per the suggestions of the doctors. But when it came to implement it, the doctors came out in protest. Since elections are to be held in the state after a few months, the doctors would think that they will be able to persuade the political parties. But now it will not be easy for any government to deny this right. Whether Congress wins or BJP, this right will have to be implemented. By bowing down to politics, this message will go that politics has nothing to do with public interest.
(These are the personal views of the author.)
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