How exactly can one react to a republic that lets more than 60 of its
children die in just 48 hours for the want of oxygen as the company
supplying oxygen to the hospital had stopped it after repeated
warnings for the same over non-payment of Rs. 68 Lakhs? How exactly
one must feel after learning that these deaths are not the only one,
that 114 children have died this year in the same hospital, and more
than 25,000 since 1978.
These are merely the reported instances. Civil society organisations
allege that the real death toll would in fact be more than 50,000 -
most of them children who never managed to reach the hospital. How
exactly one must feel after realising that the killer disease, Acute
Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) and its major form that affects the area
Japanese Encephalitis has an effective vaccine against it? To top it
all, the disease doesn’t attack unannounced - the dance of death
occurs every single year, and gets really bad after the onset of the
monsoons. This is exactly what is happening in Baba Raghav Das Medical
College in Gorakhpur year after year, with the toll crossing 1000 in
particularly bad years.
Yet another state is Madhya Pradesh, a state with no better medical
facilities and perhaps a worse record on child malnutrition. Health
Minister of the state herself admitted in the state assembly that
absolutely curable diseases like diarrhoea killed a whopping 25,440
children in the state in 2016 alone. Add to this the fact that the
health department of the state confesses that malnutrition killed 116
children in the state in 2015 and 2016. This too despite the fact that
the authorities seldom acknowledge malnutrition deaths and almost
always try to blame them on diseases.
Madhya Pradesh is on its way to appoint ‘astrologers, vastu experts,
palmists and proponents of Vedic karmakanda’ in the outpatient
departments (OPDs) of the hospitals. The state government’s plan is
for these people to examine both admitted patients and visitors to the
hospitals and diagnose their diseases. The OPDs will reportedly have
teams of experts and new astrologers to study the planets and the
horoscopes of the patients and arrive at a diagnosis. Of course, the
government of Madhya Pradesh has ensured no compromise with quality.
It will appoint only trained astrologers to OPDs, those with degrees
from state government’s Maharashi Patanjali Sanskrit Sansthan
(MPSS).
If this all sounds like a cruel joke, it is not. The union government
has decided to appoint a 19-member panel headed by the Union Minister
for Science and Technology to study the benefits of panchgavya — the
concoction of cow dung, cow urine, milk, curd and ghee (clarified
butter). While government hospitals are in a state of complete decay
and neglect and are chronically short of staff, medicines, and
equipment, the union government is forming a National Steering
Committee for “Scientific Validation and Research on Panchgavya”
(SVAROP) programme. The secretaries of departments of Science and
Technology, Biotechnology, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, and
scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi are to
be appointed to this body.
The future of any country depends on its children. This means the
future of India depends on how well the state is able to provide
children with education, health care, and equal opportunities to
attain their fullest intellectual and physical growth. Unfortunately,
in India, the interest and hence the investment is on religiously
significant matters, and not upon the children. Today, on the 70th
Independence Day, there are large number of Indians who worry about
the future of their children, and of this great country. It is the
responsibility of the government to address immediately this concern.
# # #
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) works towards the radical
rethinking and fundamental redesigning of justice institutions in
order to protect and promote human rights in Asia. Established in
1984, the Hong Kong based organisation is a Laureate of the Right
Livelihood Award, 2014.
Read this Statement online
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