Amid overblown claims about a "Developed New Kerala," a doctor known for integrity and humanity cries out from the frontlines — our healthcare sector is in the ICU. As the Health Minister brags about the thousands of crores earmarked for public health systems, a socially committed department head at the government medical college — celebrated as a centre of excellence in the capital — breaks down, saying he can no longer plead with the public for basic surgical equipment. On one side stand patients struck by severe illness, rushing in with borrowed money, mortgaging what little they have, or selling their belongings; orphans abandoned by their families; those who scrape together the cost of treatment through begging or by selling lottery tickets; poor relatives who give up their livelihoods to stay with them for weeks; and those who have to hire people to stay by the patient’s side because they have no family at all. These are the tearful images of poverty and desperation. And on the other side stands a bureaucracy — an unmovable obstacle — in front of doctors who are fully willing and ready to provide treatment.
Even when it is known that surgeries will be halted, the officers’ lobby continues to entangle months-old requests for surgical equipment in inextricable red tape. Despite the matter being raised even with the minister’s office, the response is utter indifference, as if it were being shouted into the void. The dire situation has now reached a point where surgical equipment is purchased using money collected from patients and their relatives. And then, the authorities cite the number of surgeries performed using such equipment bought through begging, as proof to cover up their own failures. Caught in the midst of this crisis, the heartbreaking anguish of sincere and helpless individuals has erupted as the outburst of Dr. Haris Chirakkal, Head of the Urology Department at Thiruvananthapuram Medical College. He is not the only department head who has worn out his shoes going back and forth along official corridors pleading for medical equipment. One has to realise that patients who fall victim to the system’s inefficiency are forced to pay through fundraising, and this not in Yogi Adityanath’s Uttar Pradesh, but under the Left Democratic Front government of the so-called beautiful and fragrant "New Kerala," now marching toward the completion of its second edition.
What Dr. Haris has exposed emerging as a whistleblower from Thiruvananthapuram, is the ailing condition of our government medical colleges and the health department that governs them. In Uttar Pradesh, paediatrician Dr. Kafeel Khan paid not only with his job but also with a peaceful life for volunteering to save children gasping for breath. The response of his colleagues was an admonition what need was there for him to be 'oversmart'. Here, when approaching department heads with urgent needs, the question Dr. Haris faced was, "Why not make do with what you have?" Unable to silence his conscience, he chose to reveal the truth on social media. Those who never responded to questions until then suddenly sprang into action — pointing fingers at the impropriety of his remarks rather than addressing the concerns. There was immediate pressure to withdraw the social media post. Protected, perhaps by the sympathy of the ruling front, Dr. Haris may have been spared the kind of retaliation Dr. Kafeel Khan faced. Still, the Pinarayi Vijayan government cannot easily wriggle out of the serious revelations he has made. Thiruvananthapuram Medical College — ranked 24th among medical institutions and one of the 11 centres of excellence in rare disease treatment in India — now finds itself in disgrace following the revelation that surgeries are stalled due to the absence of a surgical probe required for breaking kidney stones, and ambulance drivers are left waiting in hospital corridors with brain-dead donors, as there are no recipients ready to accept the donated kidneys.
Even though the issue was reported to the Health Minister’s office as a matter of utmost seriousness, the initial response from the Minister was a routine reply: “It did not come to notice". But now, the Minister says, “It’s all a problem with the system.” If that’s the case, then who is responsible for the system’s failure, other than the department minister and the government that oversee it? If surgeries are delayed for over six months in the medical college located in the capital, if essential equipment is not approved and the head of the department is left to see his shoe sole wearing out — if even that isn’t considered a failure of the minister’s office, then what is? Isn’t the government responsible when budget allocations are slashed, and when the crores of rupees sanctioned with administrative approval fail to reach the concerned parties on time? Isn’t it the Minister’s department that enables the bureaucracy to block the available resources in red-tape? If none of this can be fixed, then is the system simply to continue as it is? If so, then it is the people who must seek an alternative path for change.