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Punjab's health system at mercy of
apathetic regime
WSN Network
 CHANDIGARH:
Unlike in developed democracies like
United States
or European nations, the core issues of health and education go
blatantly missing from the public discourse in
India
and one of the major culprits is the fourth estate.
Media does two
things on this front: One, it keeps complaining that the core issues
are not talked about. Two, it fails to address the aberration and
news focus on health or education resource availability is far too
meagre than that on petty politics, politicians' statements and
crime reporting.
No wonder most
of our Diaspora readers in the
United States
and across the world are not currently looking back at
Punjab
as a place which is going through a serious disease called dengue.
It has been nearly three weeks that hospitals and dispensaries
across
Punjab started reporting a high incidence of victims of dengue.
Currently, the state is in the grip of high fever but it is clear as
daylight that the Akali Dal-BJP government took no precautionary
steps. No wonder, the central team that visited Punjab ended up
indicting the authorities for utter failure.
Many lives could
have been saved had the state not failed to check larvae formation
at the initial stages.
Dengue,
accompanied by severe muscle and joint pain, can prove to be fatal.
It can even lead to internal bleeding. Nearly a score of people have
already died with maximum deaths being reported from
Ludhiana. Punjab
CM has announced free treatment but is that the sum all of all
response? Unfortunately yes. The fact that the poor are at the mercy
because the medication is expensive and government hospitals are
ill-equipped with medicines and doctors. Forget transfusion of blood
platelets, hospitals do not even have enough beds and most cannot
conduct confirmatory dengue tests.
Punjab has
become a state that thinks it can take chances with the health of
its people. There are many in the Diaspora who want to help and are
mulling over ways to help. It is time that the people of Punjab,
particularly the poor, need a helping hand, because lives are too
important to be left to the mercy of apathetic politicians.
12 November
2008
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