Health Minister Vishwajit Rane took a welcome step forward by deciding to withdraw the absolutely unfair complaint against the 70-year-old Marita D’Cruz and her daughter Avita Godinho, for shouting and hurling abuses on him, out of anger and frustration.
The ladies were, according to them, blocked and treated roughly by the security guard at Hospicio and prevented from visiting the casualty section, at the same time when the minister was there.
As Herald strongly reported and commented editorially, that while it appeared that the minster would let the matter rest and move on, as he had promised, the very next day his personal security officer filed a complaint against the women which led to multiple cases of a criminal nature slapped against ladies.
Minister Rane, realising that this kind of a police action against two ladies would evoke strong condemnation by the people, rightly stepped and announced that the cases would be withdrawn. But his claim that he was unaware that his security officer filed the complaint, seems difficult to accept. He also said that his PSO filed a case after getting a call from the Deputy Superintendent of police. We ask the minister, again here as we have asked on the front page of this edition that did his PSO really file a complaint at the Margao police station, after the DySP called him, without informing him (Minister Rane).
We also ask the Deputy Superintendant of Police if he called the Health Minister’s PSO. If so, did he ask the PSO to file a complaint against the ladies, and why didn’t he call the minster since it was he who was the central figure in the incidents at Hospicio.
The minister’s act of withdrawing the case is indeed appreciated, but the magnanimity gets diminished if the purported facts surrounding the complaint have grey areas which need to be clarified.
What is more, this magnanimity gets further sullied by the minister actually stating that the two ladies were “not normal and needed treatment”. It doesn’t take a psychologist, but just anyone with a modicum of common sense to understand that the minister hinted that they need neurotic treatment. These were his exact words:
“Looking at their behaviour I think they need help. What type of help, you can assess. I hope an appropriate body gives them help. That is not normal behaviour.”
Really minister? So, a lady who has served as a matron of the very Hospicio hospital, presumably for the greater part of her working life, looking after patients, and her 40-year-old are both “abnormal” to you because they charged towards your car and shouted at you. They were hurt and angry because they felt they were denied entry to the hospital and when they saw you, the Health minister himself, they, in that state, rushed and let lose their frustration. Admittedly they did not stick to the rules or notion of petite lady like behaviour, or did not mind their language while addressing you, but does that mean that they need neurotic treatment.
The Minister’s act of moving on by withdrawing the complaint would have been unconditionally welcomed, if he had simply announced that he was going to do it without any further comment or justification. For a minister to term these two ladies as “abnormal” is condemnable and serious and it is best that he take one more magnanimous step of humility and simply apologise. It is then that this unfortunate chapter will see a much needed closure.
