MONDAY, APRIL 29, 2024
As deaths due to COVID-19 reach a previously unimaginable 1874, we cannot just sit back and watch the suffering of the people. The government may be insensitive to the heart wrenching scenes that play out umpteen number of times a day in hospitals across the State as family members are conveyed the news that their loved one has breathed for the last time. The virus is such that it does not even allow relatives to bid a proper farewell, as bodies are hastily cremated or buried.
The medical services are under tremendous strain and doctors and nurses are working beyond the call of duty. It is a breakdown of the administrative machinery that is responsible. Patients are dying as oxygen supply drops in the Goa Medical College but outside the walls of the hospital, government mismanagement and one-upmanship of ministers has exposed the insensitivity of the politicians we have elected. For the political class this has turned out to be an opportunity to outfox the competitor, but there are people dying, gasping for air that could make them well again and this is what they are being denied.
There are allegations of corruption in purchases made to handle the pandemic. There is talk that kickbacks and commissions demanded on every government purchase for the pandemic. Crores of rupees have already been spent, yet the State machinery is unable to save lives.
The situation is forbidding. While we at Herald bow our heads and pray for the repose of the souls and offer our condolences to the grief-stricken bereaved families, we cannot stand silent. As the Voice of Goa, we have reported, attempted as much as possible to remain positive as around us the winds of negativity increased in velocity, and now ask a few questions and repeat a few already posed in the past days.
Who in this our Goa is responsible for the COVID crisis bottoming out as it has done? Why should the Chief Minister and Health Minister be permitted to point fingers and admit no responsibility for the situation? Are people dying because of medical reasons or is it because government negligence in the GMC and other hospitals has led to interrupted oxygen supply? If it is the latter, should not compensation be paid for the loss of lives?
Sadly, while the politicians play their games, the bureaucracy remains in complete silence. Why hasn’t even a single officer stood up and laid bare the machinations that are occurring in government circles? Isn’t there even a single officer Goa can count on? Till what point will our bureaucracy allow itself to be manipulated by the political class merely to hold on to a post?
The government and the administration have failed Goa. Lives matter, not the position a person holds. Lives matter, they have to be saved.
— Editor
