As a reporter you have visited a number of hospitals in the city where you live.
You have been disappointed by the poor conditions and service prevailing in them. Write an article entitled: ‘What ails our hospitals?’ based on the notes below, for your newspaper:- Maintenances: Exterior and interior of the building — shabby posters and painted slogans on walls — cobwebs — broken and grimy window panes — floors unswept. Services: Employees often unpunctual — discourteous to visitors and patients — outdoor department overcrowded — inadequate number of doctors in attendance. Other points: Some hospitals are situated in unhygienic surroundings — neighborhoods having cowsheds and garbage – dumps.
What ails our hospitals?
Staff Reporter: Howrah, 27th April
This reporter made a round of several hospitals in the town and some private clinics. The experience has been shuddering. As a general inference of the observations, it appears that private clinics observe the rules of hygiene more than general hospitals.
The general hospitals that are financed by the state are generally, in a mess. Its yards are littered with waste cotton pads, and tubes; the drains are at times choked with plastic cases. Often it is seen that the members of the rural patients cook and eat under the campus trees. They serve the ‘pariah’ (low-breed) dogs with the remnants (=remaining food) of their diets. Naturally, as a sequel, the dogs eat, quarrel, and even defecate the area. The sight is nasty and ghastly. In places, especially along the boundary walls, the choked drains cause the filthy water to spill and spread in the lawns. They emit (= produce/give) a foul smell that appalled this reporter. But he was amazed to notice that most of the inmates seemed not to be affected by the smell. Perhaps they are conditioned or accepted it as a brute reality to be borne with.
This is the general scene that greets one as he enters such hospital premises. Their inside is no better. The walls are plastered with posters and scribbled over with charcoals. The ward servants evidently seem to be lax (= negligent) in their duties. At times even stray dogs are reported to encroach into the general wards and make off with something or other of the eatables. God alone knows when the walls and ceilings are brushed, for I found in most cases that they were besmirched (= dirty) with hanging cobwebs and soot.
The services, in general, lack the promptness and attention that such institutions call forth. I learned from inquiries from some patients that the junior doctors are alert and cooperative only when their Professor is a strict person. Otherwise, they are callous (-indifferent) and ill-mannered. Naturally, as a corollary, the lower category of the staff, too, behaves ill with the patients. One has to accept this as a universal law: if the boss is corrupt and negligent, he corrupts his whole office. It applies especially to our country, where discipline is enforced, not inherent (= born within).
Some departments are inadequately staffed; medicines are purchased on paper; cheap surgical equipment betrays at momentous (= very important) occasions and the generators remain idle as their fuel furnishes the houses of the bosses.
This dismal picture that ranges through the various hospitals compelled me to dig into the mystery of this racket; and I have diagnosed the malady: the most serious flaw is the corruption that infects the Ministry of Health. Secondly in our country human life is the cheapest stock; its loss is mourned as a ritual and very seldom a redressal (= remedy) is sought. Security of service and delayed justice in case of lapses have resulted in the mushroom growth of private clinics. In short, it is the corrupt system that thrives on bribes that ails our hospitals. A small cross-section of honest doctors discharges their duties as their conscience dictates. Well and good. But they have to maintain their honesty without coming the way of their corrupt colleagues. The principle is, where the traffic is erratic, keep to the rules as a pedestrian. But be cautious lest your law-abiding rigidity endangers your own life!
