As human tragedy unfolds in India, the sufferings of those who lost their lives due to the oxygen crunch and shortage at the Goa Medical College are unimaginable and this is a story that will and that can never be adequately told, for no one who has not experienced the mess and chaos surrounding the oxygen crunch at the Goa Medical College can know the depths. And those who do know are silenced by their deaths.
This is an era marked by doubt and confusion whose greatest need is steadfastness of thoughts and purpose.
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The pandemic has spun out of control and India’s critical institutions have let down the country and its people in their worst crisis. The authorities have been stubborn and not paid enough attention to the evidence on COVID-19. The government’s poor planning, mismanagement and missteps in tackling the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the state of our healthcare institutions which have been completely overwhelmed. In the face of growing measure of dissatisfaction among the people with the performance of our institutions, it seems that in the background of quality of leadership manning, all the instrumentalities of State have badly deteriorated. The Legislative, the Executive and the Judiciary are the three pillars of a democratic state. There should be no role distortions. The politicians need to limit their areas of operation to their respective accepted and acknowledged fields. Judiciary has to reflect the genius and character of the people living under it to hold their allegiance. If the judiciary is politicised and the agents of change viz the Executive is tending to become least accountable to the people, all three of them are locked up in problems of role conflict and inter-se-privileges.
The Oxygen crunch in Goa! No Oxygen cylinders! Oxygen machines turning off! Patients gasping for oxygen in the Intensive Care Units!
On account of non-availability of oxygen, recently many patients allegedly died, and vital parts of many other patients got badly damaged which led to their death thereafter. These were completely avoidable deaths of innocent citizens.
The statistics and figures of death are fearsome, and each individual case a tragedy. A stark challenging question faces us in the present unprecedented crisis of its character, culture and civilisation. No one deserves this kind of death. These are not deaths like any other natural deaths. These were completely avoidable deaths. Screams of pain and fear go pulsing through the corridors of Goa Medical College. It is time to amplify the screams on behalf of those who lost their lives. Failure to do so would tantamount to sin. The first task is to break the mould of silence. All voices are needed to press for punishing the guilty. Failure to do so amounts to a tacit complicity with the forces of silence. A much noisier demand for action against those responsible is vital to force this issue into public consciousness. A heavy price has already been paid for the anaesthetised patience of the public and chronic tinkering of the law by our bureaucrats and politicians.
The Indian Constitution mandates the State to protect the health of its citizens.
Goa State Government should compensate families of those who lost their lives at the Goa Medical College due to failure of the State and its agencies and instrumentalities in providing sufficient oxygen at the GMC. No immunity should be given to the State Government on account of their negligent acts. It’s a gross and criminal failure on the part of the government and the government has been responsible. The State Government needs to come forward on their own and pay compensation for the tragedy to the family members of the people who died at the Goa Medical College whose death is attributable to the lack of oxygen at the hospital or due to the shortage of supply of oxygen or oxygen machine turning off at the hospital. The victim families will have to be compensated. Our Apex Court and High Courts have through various judgments held that compensation is payable for violation of ‘fundamental rights’ guaranteed under Article 21 of Indian Constitution. It’s important and required that the ‘rights’ space created by the Supreme Court of India are encapsulated into definite interpretation and a clear procedure needed for creating entitlement. The Supreme Court of India has brought a lot of ‘rights’ jurisprudence through Article 21. The ‘rights’ are all created in the space available in Article 21. Of course in the absence of clear communication to the people, no one even demands it.
Sometimes, it seems to me that our constitution is out of touch with the people’s life, aims and aspirations and appears that it drags the people down. May be at the time of framing and drafting the constitution, we had not bargained for the kind of politicians India suffers from.
Trust me the crucifixion of humanity is a certainty and the resurrection of our race a lost possibility unless the battle for human life and values begins now, right now. So without getting isolated from the reality, and looking straight into its eyes, let’s all ask ourselves. How solicitous, we are to this issue. This assumes importance as the legal process is so mystifying and strange that more often than not, the common man is relegated to the role of a silent spectator though the issues concern his future, his livelihood, his liberty and even his life. At the current stage the most extreme conflict seems to be that between those who believe in the world of action and those who believe in the world of fate.
(The author is an advocate, International Law Consultant and Human Rights Activist)
