GMC under treatment whilst our government is busy treating itself -- By Saturnino Rodrigues, Seraulim

Saturnino Rodrigues

A short visit to Goa’s premium institution Goa Medical College Hospital, a government hospital with over thousand and four hundred beds handling about nearly two thousands patients a day tells the story of most other government hospitals in the State. It is now mostly crowded by migrants coming from the neighboring states. A recent study has revealed that majority of the Goan population including the poor prefer going to a private hospitals than to government run hospitals not by choice but by compulsion.

The prestigious ‘Escola Medico Cirurgica da Goa’ was established in the year 1842 during the Portuguese rule later renamed as Goa Medical College & Hospital is the oldest medical college in Asia which is now into shambles due to the negligence by the consecutive governments. It has been more famous for various scams than in delivering quality treatment for the patients. Not because of any inefficient and incompetent staff but for the mismanagement and due to the sheer negligence by the government.

Overcrowded wards, unclean surroundings and non-functioning equipment, is almost synonymous with government hospitals but it has become the trade mark of GMC hospital with dust-filled floors, waste strewn all around the GMC complex and unbearable stench tells the story of the unhygienic condition within and out of our prestigious institution. Waste is dumped in open bins with flies having a field day feeding on it.

Before penning this article, I was camping at the hospital in the cardiac ward beside my dying friend when I happened to enquire with some responsible sources about the condition of the hospital when I noticed the filth, water shortage and dirty linen. It was even more shocking with revelations that most of the time, there is water scarcity, the toilets are overflowing with human waste and stench is unbearable as was evident therein. It is even worst to know that many a machines don’t work, many of the sophisticated equipments are not operated due to lack of trained personnel, doctor’s, nurses and other staff are not showing much interest at times due to the mismanagement of the whole institution. It was also understood that political favoritism towards a selected staff has demoralized the motivation of other sincere, hardworking and dedicated staff. GMC hospital can boast of a huge fancy gate at the entrance but the affairs inside are not so fanciful.

The maintenance of the hospital should be done on regular basis and not only when VIP’s or Ministers come to visit the hospital or to cut a ribbon. Our politicians or MLA’s seldom takes treatment at government hospitals or admitted there unless they are caught in a crime, arrested and taken for medical when they suddenly develop ‘Chest Pain” and get admitted in air-conditioned wards to escape being lodged in jail. Otherwise, they or their families prefer not to visit the poor patients who may be their voters now admitted in the hospital. One can observe at GMC hospital that several wards are overcrowded, To make things worse, people are deprived of proper drinking water facilities as there is no sign of water vending machines, one can notice poor people filling bottles from the taps in the toilets that too if they drip by luck.

A visit to the GMC hospital will also reveal more sorrowful state of affairs, to mention that the bathrooms are pathetic will be a severe understatement. Most of them don’t even have taps and there is no water inside the washrooms. One can simply fall sick by being exposed to the unhygienic condition inside the bathroom. Sources within the institution confirmed that it is difficult to wash hands after handling accident victims soaked in blood while some toilets are labelled as ‘only for staff’. It is evident from this that the staff does not face any scarcity of water owing to these locked private like toilets. It is below respectable standards even to compare GMC hospital to a district hospital of Belgaum, across the border in terms of cleanliness and hygiene. The Goa health minister needs to certainly take serious note of the things and happenings at GMC hospital with his men to work overtime to achieve acceptable and respectable standards. The canteen inside is full of stench with flies zooming all over. A place supposed to be hygienic is like an open gutter.

The negligence by the government can be attributed to several reasons amongst one of them being that it is not a money spinning affair for the government. But it is the duty of the State to look after the health care of the populace. Recently in 2013, it was rocked with a scam of sending blood samples for testing to private laboratories of the choice of certain politicians. In 2015, it was rocked with another alleged scam of Rs. 32crs with the deliberate delay in tendering the supply of medicines to various government-run medical institutions to certain people with an objective to fit them in the supply exercise with an eye to divert commissions to their accounts. This even rocked the Goa Assembly but nothing came out of it.

Even the Goa Bench of Bombay High Court took suo moto cognizance of various media reports and action was demanded. Are our politicians afraid of anything? Whether Congress or BJP ruled Goa, the affairs of GMC hospital remained the same in a pathetic condition.

Our Goa government with hundred percent tolerance to selected corruption is now busy setting up beer industries, also busy at MOPA, Quittol in Quepem taluka and of course very-very busy in mooring the fifth casino in the River Mandovi. These are the assets, it thinks worth investing to fund the forthcoming elections. Welfare of the people is not on their agenda and neither supreme. Earlier, the Chief Minister Parsekar was extremely busy transferring the two honest Anti Corruption Bureau Officers who caught his brother-in-law in action in the alleged bribe taking incident, then was busy reinstating him back to IDC without clearing his name in the alleged bribery scandal. Unfortunately, some corrupt officers those were themselves allegedly caught accepting bribes earlier are now manning the ACB and could be sharing common grounds with selected persons of interest to play vengeance. What an irony?

The government is also busy favouring and promoting unwanted projects through the back door by using the Investment Promotion Board to hurriedly approve those projects which otherwise would have not seen the daylight in Goa. It is in the name of creating infrastructure and jobs for our youth. The actual infrastructures for the common man are the basic amenities. Better healthcare, Education, standard roads, public transport, footpaths, street lights, drainage system and clean drinking water lie in the pipeline albeit in a limbo.

And not to forget those departed and lying in the morgue of GMC for final burial, there is neither a not so good feeling for them in the morgue. It is often reported that the air-conditioning units are malfunctioning or not functioning at all. When the government does not care for the living, what can we expect from this government to care for the dead?

A fire incident in the pharmacy area in the past, the government should have been on a war footing mission to check the condition of this premium health institution to avert any further untoward damage but the recent collapse of the wall of the teaching faculty unit only tells us that this government too will collapse like the wall itself before the next monsoon.