THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2024
Sujay Gupta
Without any prelude, because there is no time for preludes of any sort, let us start this week’s despatch by cutting straight to a discussion on NDTV held two days ago ‘grimly’ called “Goa’s grim milestones” which focussed on Goa’s high COVID positivity rate. Leader of the Opposition Digambar Kamat, the petitioner in one of the main PILs against the Goa government in the High Court on making RTPCR negative certificates compulsory for entrants to Goa, Shruti Chaturvedi, the president of the Goa Resident Doctors Association and a BJP spokesperson, Asif Bhamla were the guests on the show.
The discussion centred around much of what Goa has been grappling with and a state apparatus finding itself at sea. Suddenly Mr Bhamla quipped on-air “requesting all Goans who lost their family member “Be positive na”.
Everyone was utterly shocked not just at the insensitivity of the man but the choice of the term ‘positive’, which in today’s COVID times, is a very cruel word.
But then, that’s the point. The nonchalance which has dominated the COVID handling crisis in Goa, was then fuelled by thinking, which in Mr Bhamla’s phraseology, would constitute “positive thinking”. And this positive thinking revolved around the government thinking that all the moves they made to get more beds, a super speciality block functioning in GMC etc, were signs that the COVID management apparatus was working.
These are akin to putting band-aids to stem the flow of blood due to a deep cut in a vein. The crisis in the Goa Medical College, the epicentre of the state’s COVID disaster cannot be controlled only by increasing GMC’s capacity. Beds and oxygen cylinders do not save lives. Doctors and nurses do.
The Chief Minister today announced that his team was preparing for the third wave and based on a perception that it might affect children (the author does not endorse either the claim or throw any light if this assessment has a scientific basis), by getting a paediatric facility ready in GMC which is expandable.
This decision itself cannot be dismissed. However, if this is just the measure or the primary measure of the administration’s response, then it is short-sighted. The government is making the same mistake of dedicating all its major responses (Liquid Oxygen tank, super specialty block, the proposed paediatric facility) to GMC. If we, for the moment, accept that children need to be watched as and when the third wave arrives, then the Primary and Urban Health centres need priority attention, more than GMC. With Goa’s shoddy transport system and the impending monsoons, expected to be heavy, it will be a mammoth challenge for many parents to travel from far-flung areas carrying a sick child. This is not to trigger alarms but simply points to be parked after the colossal failure of the Goa government in handling the second wave.
In fact, a robust common-sense approach adopted by citizen volunteers who became citizen petitioners for the sake of Goa evokes more confidence in the people than the knee-jerk ‘disaster first, preparation later’ mantra that the government seems to be following. Citizen volunteer and petitioner Shruti Chaturvedi posted this roadmap for other citizen volunteers. Since this was so in sync with what all right-thinking Goans are saying and needs elaboration only in detailing and specifics, it merits a verbatim reproduction. So here goes:
“- Ask your district & State administration to update the public on a regular basis on how they are preparing to deal with the third wave. Everyday. (Take help of Courts if social media & emails don't help).
- Ask your MLAs, sarpanchas to use their grants, (for COVID management). Most of the grants have been allotted in the month of April & May.
- Ask Municipalities (Mayor, corporators) to set up war rooms, accessible helplines to help people find beds, medicines, ambulances, etc. (Draw inspiration from the work of BMC Mumbai).
- Pass the mic to medical experts, ask them to share the requirements with the govt. Amplify these demands.
-Demand the govt to use PM CARES and health budget to procure equipment & facilities required to deal with the third wave of COVID-19.
- Demand the govt to make necessary arrangements for the underprivileged. Food, ration etc must be taken care of by the government.
Charity is not a sustainable solution. As citizens, we cannot be doing govt's job forever. IT IS NOT OUR JOB. Neither can we keep pouring people's money and energy to make up for some govt officials' greed & corruption. Govt has enough money for everything! Just no foresight or sense of accountability towards the people. Let's help them with that. "Last mein koi nahi karega toh log toh kar hi lenge. Par pehle, jiska kaam hai, unhe karne par majbur kiya jaye” (If the govt doesn’t do what its supposed to, people will. But compel those (govt) whose job it is to do this first.
The approach in this note is clear. The fight has to be taken to grassroots, the villages and municipalities. Those who have been elected in local civic and panchayat elections have perhaps a bigger duty than doctors when the war of prevention is going on. War rooms and beds in the primary, community and urban health centres have to be planned, staffed and managed under the supervision of elected members to local bodies.
Look, they have to be put to test. The post of sarpanch and councillor can’t merely be a seat attained due to the tidal flow of local politics. When will Goa see leadership and planning from its elected members? One would have expected far more movement in the hinterland of Goa, in villages with no roads and inconsistent electricity, in augmenting health care and infrastructure, than what we see now. In the same manner that village groups planned and prepared their village plans to ensure a just Regional Plan, each village panchayat must now come up with its own village wise health infrastructure plan. Each village will then have to be provided with all infrastructure on a war footing.
This will involve deft financial planning and rejigging budget allocations. One has not seen, heard read about tweaking fiscal management to fund the government’s COVID response.
Let’s get this straight. Photo-ops with corporates of various hues and colours donating oxygen concentrators to hospitals isn’t quite the idea of COVID management envisaged. Nor can corporate CSR supplement state spending on COVID management.
Finally, let’s go back to the very learned BJP spokesman who was a guest in the NDTV show who asked victim’s families to “be positive, na”. Why, is a genie or the supreme sage arriving? Tell them, that for the sake of Goa, ordinary Goans and the High Court are enough to deliver a semblance of governance in these disastrous times.
