The obituary of an unknown Indian

The obituary of an unknown Indian
Gita Dewan Verma

It's not just a minister's death or the prime minister's knee that should concern us

Shri Bhagwandas, 45, son of Naraindas, village Thikri, district Khargone, Madhya Pradesh, timber market worker in Labria Beru, Indore, was not a former minister or prime minister. Still, the nature of his healthcare and the circumstances of his death should cause more concern to ordinary Indians than the little details of Vajpayee's knee or Kumaramangalam's diagnosis.

Early in the morning of September 14, he died just ``inside'' the Maharaja Yashwantrao Tukojirao TB Sanatorium in Rau, Indore.

He was just ``inside'' because he had not been officially admitted, although he had been camping outside the sanatorium for three days, asking to be admitted. The previous evening he was seen gasping for breath and crying for help and was therefore moved ``inside''.

The late Bhagwandas had not been officially admitted because the ``authorities'' in this government-run institution had instructions to discharge all patients and not admit any patients. The ``authorities'' had no instructions to admit patients even though, nearly a week ago, on September 8, the court had ordered readmissions and fresh admissions -- a development that was reported in the local newspapers, some of which even the ``authorities'' may have read.

The court had passed this order when residents of the village, on whose panchayat land the Maharaja Yashwantrao Tukojirao TB Sanatorium sits, had sought its intervention for contempt of an earlier court order, given on August 17 restraining the government from forcibly discharging patients.

That order was given in response to an urgent plea made in the light of the complaints the panchayat had received from patients about forced discharges and refused admissions and the fact that on August 16 only 23 patients remained in the 100-bed sanatorium.

Only 23 patients remained because, just around the 53rd Independence Day, the state had ``discharged'' the others. Incidentally, on August 17, the day of the court order, 18 more patients were ``discharged'', including a sputum positive, multi-drug resistant one who has been living on a railway station platform since then.

The abrupt ``discharge'' of nearly all the patients in the middle of August took place in spite of a court order of December 3, 1998, directing the state not to transfer patients or refuse admissions. This court order was given on a PIL filed in the wake of a government order instructing the sanatorium authorities to refuse new admissions and gradually discharge all existing patients so as to vacate the land and building by the end of November 1998.

The government order was issued on November 7, 1998, in spite of the government's own assurance given to the High Court that the patients would be shifted to an equal or better alternative facility before the site was utilised for another purpose. This assurance was given in June 1998 in the government's response to a PIL against the closure of the sanatorium and, in the light of this assurance, the court disposed off the petition, saying there was no controversy.

Bhagwandas died on September 14 just ``inside'' the Maharaja Yashwantrao Tukojirao TB Sanatorium in Rau, Indore -- a sanatorium which once had reputation for being a well-attended public health facility that has served many ordinary Indians well for nearly a century -- because of a government instruction not to admit him.

For at least a month before he died, the inevitability of his death was obvious and the attention of the highest levels of governance as well as of the media had been drawn to it. Yet he died when he might not have. More deaths of this kind are sure to follow. Will we be able to stop them? Will we be able to bring those responsible for the death of Bhagwandas to book? Or will this obituary also be the obituary of yet another bit of the great Indian welfare state?