Imploding Healthcare as Mohan Bhagwat Raises Red Flag
Image credit X @RSSOrg
Mohan Bhagwat should have diagnosed healthcare rot, which would have revealed scale of the corporate thugs masquerading as policy experts.
TRH EDITORIAL
During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first few years in the office, his brainchild, the Niti Aayog, advocated that an industry status to hospitals will be a quick way to expand healthcare coverage for the people. Almost eight years later after the Modi government walked the advocacy, the ideological mentor of the Prime Minister and the chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) Mohan Bhagwat most eloquently said that the healthcare is beyond the reach of the most of the people in the country.
The rise of the corporate healthcare is astounding. Now even Tier II and III cities are boasting of corporate hospitals. Unsuspecting family members of patients empty their savings and even mortgage properties for availing healthcare, including those they may not have required.
A viral social media post of a woman alleging a leading corporate hospital in Gurugram made an elder with just five percent risk for open heart surgery to spend days in the ICU post-operation before her passing away is an eye-opener. The woman was served a bill of ₹29 lakh, while medical staff evaded her as the patient stayed intubated in the ICU post-operation.
Dr Sankha Shubra Chakraborty in a post on X, while reacting to the viral post, said, “It is going to be tough being a new doctor in India due to all the bad press the big corporates have been bringing. Sadly, owners of these big corporates head all health policymaking bodies too.”
The doctor further stated “any operative procedure has risks of death… but the amount of erratic practice we see daily makes us worried for the future of health. We need evidence-based medicine instead of trust-driven healthcare.”
On X, Aakash Tewari, a healthcare activist, was more blunt: “If you admit your loved ones to scam hospital chains… you’re partly to blame when disaster strikes. It’s public knowledge these places run on greed, yet people still go, dazzled by marble lobbies & doctors in Rolls-Royces.”
The Gurugram incident has reignited calls for stronger patient rights, transparency in medical procedures, and independent oversight of India’s largest private hospitals.
But the policy makers at the Centre and states seem oblivious of a healthcare disaster unfolding. Public hospitals, including AIIMS in New Delhi, are without one-third of the sanctioned senior doctors. Medical colleges complain of a lack of senior and specialised faculty members.
The rot is now such that even for simple and seasonal flue related ailments doctors insist for hospitalisation. Bhagwat spared the government with a generic statement on implosion in the healthcare. He should have diagnosed the rot, which would have revealed in the corporate thugs masquerading as policy experts in the corridors of power.
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