Health, doctors and our predicament

There was a time when people of certain professions were held in high esteem. As far as I can recall from my childhood memories I saw people bow down before doctors and teachers. Very often I saw my father bidding ‘Assalamualikum’ to one of our village doctors as they walked past each other. He addressed him as ‘doctor sahib’. The word ‘sahib’ was a way of showing respect to someone. We learnt from elders that as doctors served people they should be held in high regard. As teachers taught us how to become a real human being they should be held in high respect.

We used to learn to distinguish between good and evil from the people of those professions. Poor benighted villagers considered them enlightened. When we were given an essay on ‘your aim in life’ we wrote in our exam paper that we would like to be a doctor to serve the people of the country. Such was the image of a doctor. Still students write it for the sake of passing the exams. But we not only wrote it, we meant it and we believed in the integrity and honesty of them. Still some doctors act like angels. Still some teachers teach their children about what human value is, what love is, how compassion and kindness bind people together.

But not all of them now are in the same role as we saw them in the past. Things have undergone a sea change. Doctors are no more angels, doctors are no more life savers, and doctors no more rush to your houses during your serious ailment. As soon as corporate pharmaceutical companies came into the market, things began to change in a lightning speed. This corporate capital assassinated the archaic character of doctors. They are now part of the corporate capital.

One example in my life, though there are many more to mention, will suffice to drive my point home. I went to visit a doctor. As I came out of his chamber at least five to six medical representatives bolted to me to see my prescription. I was taken aback. I couldn’t make out what the hell on this earth broke loose! Without realizing what they were demanding I clutched my prescription into the palm of my right hand. My voice that demanded reason for their swooping on me drowned into their clamor. At one stage amid clamor as my grasp on the prescription slackened off someone just grabbed it. I grabbed it back flinging words of fury that I wasn’t used to.

Behind the small crowd someone of small-built with a rabbit face craned his neck to draw my attention. The man seemed to be familiar to me. As I was trying to recall his name he called me by my name. He literally saved me from the unruly and uncouth small band of medical representatives. To my utter dismay, I also found my saver a medical representative. After exchanges of greeting, only to worsen my predicament, he asked for my prescription. Out of gratitude, though unwillingly and hesitatingly, I handed him the prescription.

By the time it dawned upon me that they were looking for the names of the drugs of their companies in my prescription. They wanted to be sure if the doctor prescribed the drugs of their companies. It was unnerving and unsettling to see the doctors becoming commission agents. I was absorbed in thinking about the people-serving doctors giving way to profit mongers. I jolted back to the reality by the question of the rabbit face. He asked me what I was thinking about. I smiled an unwilling smile and said goodbye to him to shuffle back home. It happened roughly 15 years back.

The other day I was walking down an alley. It was soon after the sun had sunk in the west. The road is usually dark with few street lights. Very few people visit the place but during day time it is fairly crowded. Nowadays even during night the place can be seen with a thin crowd as a number of medicine shops and doctors’ chambers have mushroomed. As I was walking a tiny figure emerged out of nowhere. In the darkness I couldn’t figure out as the figure stood just in front of me with a wide grin. It was the rabbit face again. Only the white teeth of the white rabbit were gleaming in the dusty shafts of street lights. He pointed to a medicine shop behind him: ‘This is my shop. Please, don’t go anywhere to buy medicine. Whenever you need to buy medicine, just come to my shop.’ His eyes glinted with greed and a bright future prospect. I smiled a fake smile and told him I certainly would.

I don’t have any personal grudge against the rabbit face. He is doing what everyone is doing. He is the part of an evil scheme that breeds greed and corruption. Human lives are not given a flying fuck here. What the High Court said on May 9 reflected the enormity of corruption and erosion of honesty in our health sector. A High Court bench that day, during a hearing on a writ petition, said: ‘Except for a few honest individuals, the health sector is full of corrupt people from the top to bottom.. . everything must have a limit. The Health Ministry is always ready to purchase. Only Allah knows what remains left in those boxes. You are stealing 17 crore people’s money.”

What does the statement of the High Court (HC) imply? It implies that we are now helpless. The HC itself is helpless. Our future is now at the mercy of only God. What the HC said next mirrored the ugly truth: ‘The doctors are making profit in connivance with the pharmaceutical companies. . . most of the government doctors deprive the people of rural areas of proper treatment by living in Dhaka where they have private practices.’

The HC literally cursed the people and doctors mired in dishonesty, corruption and malpractice. When the HC itself feels battered, beaten and undone it is an ominous sign for the nation.

The writer is a journalist. He can be contacted at maksud.i.rahaman@gmail.com